Religious Marriages in the
Mediterranean
Venue and date:
Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta, 20-21 March 2018
Within Mediterranean settings,
religious marriage has functioned for centuries, together with
conversion, as a means both of
formal social incorporation and of exclusion of outsiders in
relation to
religiously-defined officially-recognised ethnic communities. Such an approach
was an integral part of the
Ottoman constitution; aspects of the millet system continue to have
some posthumous existence in
states like Lebanon and Cyprus. Over the last century or so,
the development of secular or
‘quasi-secular’ nation-states throughout the region has
generally meant the
replacement of religious by civil marriage within state legal systems.
Whether this has occurred via
silent absorption or principled exclusion of religious unions, or
even by the creation of
dualist systems giving civil marriage pride of place, the juridical
implications have been
profound and range from the complete legal marginalisation of
previously dominant religious
traditions to the creation of ‘protected zones’ within secular
jurisdictions within which
religious law can operate. Everywhere religious courts have been
side-lined and have either
been completely eliminated from the formal state’s radar, or
compelled to accept a subordinate
position within the state judicial hierarchy. At the same
time, formally secular forms
of marriage with religious conceptual roots have had to serve as
important gate-keepers in
granting or withholding access to citizenship and legal residence in
states like Greece, Malta or
Spain, which have been at the forefront of Mediterranean migrant
flows.
More recently unregistered
religious marriages have gone through a revival, proving also to
be a useful vehicle for
addressing mismatches between state legislation and the matrimonial
strategies of couples. Thus
the Mediterranean, a point of both intersection and mixing where
ideas about the ‘West’ and its
‘other’, are re-produced and transformed, has witnessed how
these transitions resulted in
either a tense relationship between marriages regulated by formal,
state laws and religious
marriages celebrated according to informal, religious norms, or on
the other end of the spectrum,
civil marriages and (certain) religious marriages living
harmoniously side-by-side and
at times also being considered synonymous.
This multidisciplinary
conference seeks to bring together researchers who have engaged in
research on religious
marriages in the Mediterranean.
Papers may focus on, but are not limited to, one or more of the
following themes:
1. Exploring the legal and
social interaction between religious and civil marriages in
the Mediterranean, whether
contemporary or historical perspective (colonial and
postcolonial).
2. Investigating the
non-apparent connections between different religions within and
without marriage legislation
(Sunni, Shia, Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Jewish,
Hindu…), including papers on
mixed marriages.
3. How human/civil rights
discourses blend and/or conflict with other forms of
theological, moral and/or
customary discourses on religious marriages.
4. Diverse ways of
concluding and/or celebrating religious marriages in the
Mediterranean.
5. Problematization and
politicization of religious marriages in the Mediterranean.
Organizers:
Ibtisam Sadegh (University of
Amsterdam)
David Zammit (University of
Malta)
Susan F. Hirsch (George Mason
University)
Papers (7,000-8,000 words),
will be considered for publication in a special issue of the
international, peer-reviewed
Journal of Mediterranean Studies (ISSN: 1016-3476), published
by the Mediterranean
Institute, University of Malta and available electronically through
Project Muse.
Upon request, limited travel
and accommodation funds (two nights) may be available for
short-listed candidates who
cannot apply for funding from their own universities. Please
submit your request for
funding with your paper proposal.
Key note speaker:
Annelies Moors, Professor of
Anthropology, University of Amsterdam
Deadline for abstract
submission: 31 January 2018
and your last name in the
subject heading.
Timeline:
31 January 2018: Deadline
for abstract submission
10 February 2018: Notification
of acceptance
1 March 2018: Deadline
for complete draft of paper between 5000 – 8000 words
or a PowerPoint presentation.
20-21 March 2018: Conference
hosted by the Mediterranean Institute
1 April 2018: Select
participants will be invited to submit papers for consideration for
publication in 2018 in the
Journal of Mediterranean Studies
This two-day conference is
organized by the University of Malta through the Department of
Civil Law and the
Mediterranean Institute research group on Belief, Identity and Exchange in
conjunction with the
ERC-funded research project on ‘Problematizing “Muslim Marriages”:
Ambiguities and Contestations’
hosted by the University of Amsterdam.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment