From August 23-27 2017, GIN was lucky enough to attend the V Latin American Congress on Gender and Religion, hosted at the Faculdades EST in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil. Our Transitional Consultant, Toni Kruger-Ayebazibwe, accompanied two Board members, Tania Irias (Latin America – see her interview above) and Ka Kay Pamaran (East and South-East Asia).
As the congress invite indicated,
“The Latin American Congress on Gender and Religion gathers researchers, students, community and social movements’ leaders and government agents. In 2015, more than 300 people from 20 countries attended the IV Congress.
The main goal of the Congress is to discuss contemporary issues in the field of research, political action and community life in the intersection of Gender and Religion, from several areas of knowledge. Besides, at each edition, special themes are chosen to represent pressing issues. For the V Congress “Ecology – Economy – Ecumenism” were chosen as special themes. According to Nancy Cardoso Pereira:
“Three neighboring words rub at each other here: economy, ecology, ecumenism. The three share the oikos: basic social unit (house, but also world). […] Thus they are three forms of being in the world and organizing life in the world. While economy orders, normatizes the modes of production of life in relation to the world, ecology deals with understanding those relations, their logics and implications and ecumenism asks for the ways (objective and subjective) of occupation/living in the world”.”
The V Latin American Congress again gathered more than 300 people from over 20 countries, including a number of GIN members. Themes included gender, feminisms, economics, biopolitics of religion, the body and sexualities, land rights, politics and human rights.
The Congress was opened by a performance by a dance troupe dancing the paintings of Frida Kahlo, and an address by Rev Dr Nancy Cardoso Pereira, well-known Latin American theologian; and closed by Professor Sarojini Nadar, Desmond Tutu Chair for Ecumenical Theology and Social Transformation, at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
12 working groups addressed a range of themes as noted above and in the end the Congress produced 42 theses, which are available here in English, and here in Spanish and Portuguese respectively. The content of the theses reflects the concerns and perspectives of participants, and as can be seen, this was a vital, diverse and politically progressive space in which to promote GIN.
GIN will continue to engage with our new Latin American Board member, Tania Irias and to support her to engage with other Latin American GIN members. We are also working on finding ways to translate more of our content, more of the time.
