Nonreligions across the Globe

Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 11:00-12:45
Location: ASJE018 (Annex of the Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences)
RC22 Sociology of Religion (host committee)

Language: English

This panel calls for papers that examine nonreligious (e.g. atheist, agnostic, humanist, spiritual but not religious) beliefs, practices, and identities from a global and/or comparative perspective. This panel will explore how nonreligious cultures vary across different social groups and how geographic contexts shape the individual and societal expressions of nonreligion. How is nonreligion differently represented, policed, and/or politicized in media, public discourse, and bureaucratic structures across the globe? How do expressions of nonreligion vary across social contexts (e.g. race, gender, sexuality, political orientation) and what factors shape those differences? What methodological interventions are needed to better capture the growing diversity of nonreligious expressions? While papers for this panel do not necessarily need to draw on comparative data, they should in some way address these more macro, comparative questions about the cultural specificities of nonreligious identities and practices.
Session Organizer:
Jacqui FROST, Purdue University, USA
Chair:
Valentina PEREIRA ARENA, Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Uruguay
Oral Presentations
Digital Infrastructure of Atheist Activism in Pakistan:
Mustafa KAMAL, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Identity Tethers: How the Secular Stay Muslim
Eman ABDELHADI, University of Chicago, USA; Anna FOX, University of Chicago, USA; Michael GUILMETTE, University of Chicago, USA; Besheer MOHAMED, Pew Research Center, USA