Why do people rise up against state authority and arbitrariness? What determines whether people use non-violent or violent means of resistance? And how can we empirically evaluate the effects of resistance?
In this CeCoP lecture, Dr. Maria Birnbaum from the University of Basel will talk about how religion is instrumentalized by both regimes and resistance movements to mobilize people and achieve political goals. As the author of Before Recognition: How the Politics of Religion shaped the International Order, she will present various examples in which religion had a significant influence on resistance dynamics on both the state and civilian side. Both the role of British Indian Muslims in the resistance against British colonial rule and the majority rule of the Indian National Congress as well as the role of various religious communities in the decades before the partition of Palestine focus on "religion" as a shaping force through which government and resistance practices were organized.
CeCoP Lecture with Maria Birnbaum
- Title: "Colonial Religion: Recognition and Resistance"
- Date: 12.05.2026, 6.00 - 7.30 PM
- Room: 15/308
Dr. Maria Birnbaum is a lecturer at the University of Basel and senior researcher at swisspeace. She is an associate researcher at the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos) at the University of Cambridge, at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) in Princeton and at the University of Bern. Her research in the fields of global politics, social and political theory, religious studies and colonial history focuses on the relationship between diversity and regulation, with a particular emphasis on religion and politics. She also teaches and publishes on the politics and history of knowledge and non-knowledge and on the history of concepts.
This CeCoP lecture is part of Finn Klebe's Strategies of (Non-)Violent Resistance seminar and is open to all interested parties. The CeCoP and the IfS are looking forward to a lively participation of students as well as academic and non-academic audience.
