The International Feminist Journal of Politics (IFJP) has launched a global call for expressions of interest for its new Online Conversation Series titled “Knowing and Being Otherwise: Religion, Spirituality, and Feminist Interventions in Global Politics.” The initiative marks the beginning of an ambitious two-year programme that will bring together scholars, researchers, activists, artists, and practitioners from across the world to explore the intersections of religion, spirituality, feminism, and global politics.
The first online conversations are scheduled for 7–8 September 2026, with interested participants required to submit their expressions of interest by 3 August 2026.
Reimagining Feminist Knowledge and Global Politics
The initiative seeks to challenge dominant approaches within International Relations, Political Science, and related disciplines that have traditionally privileged secular, rationalist, and positivist perspectives. Rather than treating religion and spirituality merely as objects of academic inquiry, the series aims to recognize them as legitimate sources of knowledge, political imagination, and lived experience.
The project encourages participants to engage with diverse intellectual traditions, including:
- Feminist epistemologies
- Decolonial thought
- Indigenous knowledge systems
- Black Studies
- Southern epistemologies
- Radical and critical philosophies of religion
- Embodied and ancestral ways of knowing
Organizers hope these conversations will create new opportunities to rethink how knowledge about global politics is produced and whose perspectives are included.
A Two-Year Global Collaboration
The conversation series is only the first stage of a broader international collaboration running through 2027. Planned activities include both online and in-person engagements across multiple regions of the world.
The programme includes:
- Online talks, study sessions and collaborative conversations
- Planning Workshop in Auroville/Pondicherry, India (3–5 December 2026)
- Africa Hub Workshop in Rwanda (2027)
- Latin America Hub Conference on Ancestrality in Brazil (July 2027)
- Additional regional online and in-person events throughout 2027
- Final International Conference in Varanasi, India at the end of 2027
The initiative is designed to foster long-term collaboration between scholars, practitioners and institutions working across different disciplines, cultures and spiritual traditions.
Themes and Areas of Interest
Participants are invited to contribute ideas that challenge conventional understandings of religion, spirituality and feminism while exploring alternative frameworks for political engagement.
Key themes include:
- Religion and spirituality as ways of knowing
- Feminist political imaginaries
- Secularism and global power structures
- Indigenous and ancestral knowledge systems
- Embodied political practices
- Interfaith and intercultural dialogue
- Historical memory and reparative justice
- Community-building and liberation movements
- Alternative understandings of subjectivity and identity
- Decolonial approaches to global politics
The organisers particularly encourage conversations that move beyond colonial binaries such as body versus mind, nature versus culture, and religion versus feminism.
Who Should Apply?
The call welcomes expressions of interest from individuals and organisations interested in contributing to these global conversations.
Potential participants include:
- Academic researchers
- University faculty
- Graduate students
- Feminist scholars
- Political scientists
- International Relations researchers
- Religious studies scholars
- Indigenous knowledge practitioners
- Civil society organisations
- Community organisers
- Artists and cultural practitioners
- Activists working on gender justice and social transformation
The organisers are also inviting institutions and networks interested in collaborating on future online or in-person events throughout the two-year programme.
Why This Initiative Matters
The IFJP initiative responds to growing calls for more inclusive approaches to feminist scholarship that recognise diverse cultural, spiritual and intellectual traditions. By centring voices from the Global South alongside Indigenous, Black and decolonial perspectives, the programme seeks to expand conversations around global politics beyond dominant Western academic frameworks.
Rather than positioning spirituality and feminism as opposing forces, the project aims to explore how religious and spiritual traditions can contribute to new forms of feminist thought, political action and collective transformation.
Application Deadline
Interested participants should submit an expression of interest by 3 August 2026 to participate in the inaugural online conversations taking place on 7–8 September 2026.
Further announcements regarding workshops, conferences and collaboration opportunities throughout 2027 will be released by the International Feminist Journal of Politics.
Application Deadline: 3 August 2026
First Online Conversation Series: 7–8 September 2026
