Hope and Struggle: Navigating Today, Nurturing Tomorrow
The Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) is the largest and longest running interdisciplinary conference series in the United States addressing issues of religion and race in Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities. Since 1999, APARRI gatherings have provided opportunities for scholars and community leaders involved in work on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander religions to share research, exchange ideas, and build collaborative relationships.
As we gather in this year of unprecedented social and political challenge, we invite participants to reflect on sources of hope and struggle for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander religious communities. How have Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander scholars and religious communities grounded themselves in hope? How has hope anchored their collective struggle for meaning, fulfillment, and social change? When and where have we also witnessed the limits of that hope? How have Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander scholars and religious communities wrestled with the struggle of hopelessness and unfulfilled hopes?
Particular sub-topics of interest on hope and struggle include:
- Praxis, e.g. how practitioners have actualized hope
- Spiritual and theological foundations from different traditions
- Resurgence of subversive, wayward and radical histories
- Popular culture and cultural productions
- Solidarity and partnerships in diasporic and transnational contexts
- Social change through the arts, including poetry, film, visual culture
- Movements for collective well-being, care and play
- Teaching in and outside the classroom, e.g. pedagogy and public scholarship
- The digital age; AI and its impact on religious communities
- Confronting climate, migration and economic crises
- Apocalypse and apocalyptic movements
- Struggles against unjust laws
- Different notions of hope across religious traditions
- Histories of, and lessons from, unfulfilled struggle or disappointing hope
- Transnational intimacies, narratives of repair
While APARRI does not require an exclusive focus on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander religious communities, proposals that center and prioritize these are preferred. Please note that conference proposals must engage some aspect of APA religions: papers about topics/interests in Asia or the Pacific (alone)–without connection to the Americas–will not meet minimum eligibility. Note also that our conference will be held fully in-person and thus will not be able to accommodate requests to present virtually (via Zoom).