Mona Oraby (Amherst, USA): Devotion to the Administrative State

Abstract

“This talk draws on my current book project, How Will We Know Who We Are? Devotion to the Administrative State. In the last decade alone, countless communities globally have codified into family and criminal law their religious norms. Still others have enshrined religious establishment clauses within constitutional frameworks. And in constitutionally secular societies, the appeal to state law and courts for religious exemption continues unabated. Such demands – whether for recognition, exemption, accommodation, or protection – are not specific to postcolonial societies. They implicate every geography. They are expressed in states that claim a religious identity, as well as those that claim neutrality toward religion. These developments challenge scholars' deep-seated skepticism toward the nation-state, a skepticism which has led many to argue that state regulation diminishes social flourishing. Contrary to this prevailing skepticism, I theorize in the book what I call ‘devotion to the administrative state,‘ a counterintuitive fidelity to state recognition shared by marginalized, minority communities. I argue that the desire for and pursuit of state recognition is a devotional practice, one that assures communal integrity and coherence over time. My argument is based in an analysis of over fifty years of administrative judicial trends, theological discourse, minority claims-making practices, and documentary evidence specific to modern and contemporary Egypt but also a broader, global history of civil administration and adjudication. I bring to light the extraordinary ways that seemingly marginal religious groups help us to reimagine the relationship between law and religion.”

Assist. Prof. Dr. Mona Oraby

Zoom Link: https://uni-bonn.zoom.us/j/97938772045?pwd=elQ2UytJMFB5MmJ6ZmNKRjdyUTRuQT09
Meeting-ID: 979 3877 2045
Password: 899505

Curriculum Vitae

Assist. Prof. Dr. Mona Oraby is a scholar of law and religion with research interests in group formation, membership, and belonging. She obtained her doctorate from Northwestern University in 2017 with a thesis entitled The Difference that Affiliation Makes: Religious Conversion, Minorities, and the Rule of Law. She was the Jerome Hall Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Law, Society, and Culture at Indiana University Maurer School of Law before becoming an assistant professor in the Department of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought at Amherst College. She has been a fellow or visiting scholar at research centers in North America and Europe including the American Bar Foundation (Chicago), the Institute for Critical Social Inquiry at The New School (New York), and the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen).

She is editor of the Social Science Research Council’s digital publication The Immanent Frame, a forum for interdisciplinary exchange on secularism, religion, and the public sphere. She additionally serves as a steering committee member of the Secularism and Secularity Unit of the American Academy of Religion. Her editorial board memberships include Arab Law Quarterly and Middle East Law and Governance.

Since October 2020 Assist. Prof. Dr. Mona Oraby has been a Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center "Law as Culture“ in Bonn.