“Fulbright and the Cultural Politics of Interfaith Action” is the theme, which will be presented at CRCS&ICRS Wednesday Forum. Discussion will be held on Wednesday, March 5, 2008. The key speaker will be Dr. Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta.
Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta is a head of LPPM (Institute for Research and Community Development) at Duta Wacana Christian University (DWCU), Yogyakarta, Indonesia and a general secretary, District of Sleman, Indonesian Women?s Coalition. She is also a core Doctoral Faculty at International Consortium for Religious Studies, Yogyakarta (ICRS-Yogya). She earned her Ph.D in Social Science at Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands. She is the editor of a book entitle ?Women and Disaster?.
The discussion will be held at the Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University, third floor, room 306, at 13:00 to 15.00. The discussion is free of charge. Please invite your friends to join the discussion.
Below is the abstract which will be presented in the discussion
Abstract:
Fulbright and the Cultural Politics of Interfaith Action
By; Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta
This paper is a work in progress on my research concerning the roles of religions in transforming cultural politics in Indonesia. It argues that religions in their own original contexts have provided fundamental conditions in the struggle for social justice and peace-making. Cultural politics in this study, is related to transnational cultural identities and processes. It includes the analysis of political problems and the character and agency of cultural and political explanations. The American Fulbright Program has stimulated many changes in the meaning and interpretations of interfaith action that are influenced by the US’s socio-historical, cultural and political circumstances. The question that this paper tries to answer is to what extend the transnational cultural politics of Fulbright can (or should) empower world religions elsewhere in this globe to channel prophetic voices for social justice and peaceful efforts? How may the Interfaith Action Program, which began its first program in August to December 2007, challenge religious communities in Indonesia.
Keywords: Transnational analysis, cultural politics, religion and interfaith action
