Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Integrative Research Institute Law & Society (LSI)

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Faculty of Law | Integrative Research Institute Law & Society (LSI) | News | Surveillance and Religion: Laws and Practices – New Research Project at LSI

Surveillance and Religion: Laws and Practices – New Research Project at LSI

Since September 2020 the research project Surveillance and Religion: Laws and Practices is based at the Integrative Research Institute Law & Society with Dr. Nahed Samour M.A. as principal investigator. It is funded by the Arab Young German Academy.


This project prepares the publication of a collected volume entitled “Surveillance and Religion: Laws and Practices”. The publication aims to widen the scope of contemporary critical security studies and analysis of the intersection of data technology, law and human rights. At the center of our investigation lie contributions that highlight the universality of surveillance technologies and the particular impacts of their local utilizations on various individuals and communities in Germany/Europe and the Arab region. Specifically, the aim is to lay out how laws of national security intervene in the lives of religious communities and thereby shape the relation of state and religion, drawing a demarcation line between acceptable and unacceptable religious or sectarian practices. The publication seeks to understand the ongoing dynamic between technology, law and social practices as a transnational phenomenon and to advance an analytical framework for illuminating how technological/surveillance capabilities, legal discourse and social practices travel back and forth between Germany/Europe and the Arab region.

The project is a research cooperation with Prof. Anaheed al-Hardan of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and the Media Studies of the American University of Beirut and part of the Arab German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. It is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

 

More information on the project's webpage.