The workshop brought together scholars from Queen’s and Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion who have research interests in analysing the significance and impact of religions in polarizing contexts, including the roles of religion in violence, polarisation, peacebuilding, and imagining alternative futures on the island of Ireland, Palestine/Israel, and the United States.

During the workshop, a number of panel discussions explored the themes of Zionism, Pilgrimage and Tourism; Religions – Pasts and Futures; Religions, Violence, and Polarisation; Religion and Identity; and Religions, Environmentalism, and Sustainability.

Other themes which emerged from the discussions included competing conceptions of apocalypse, differing approaches to time, the role of the past in imagining the future, and contested relationships between religion, ethnicity, and politics.  

The workshop was co-ordinated by Professor Gladys Ganiel, Mitchell Institute Fellow: Religion, Arts and Peacebuilding and from the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s, and Professor Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peace studies at the University of Notre Dame.

It was supported by Notre Dame, The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice at Queen’s and was funded by the Queen’s Global Research Partnerships Development Fund.

Mitchell Institute Director, Professor Richard English commented: “Research-led debates on major global themes are at the heart of what the Mitchell Institute supports. I'm grateful to Professor Ganiel, and to Queen’s and Notre Dame colleagues, for this pioneering and important work in partnership.”

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