[Air-L] CfP: 4S Open Panel 178: Technology Needs of the Muslim Communities Around the World

[Peer, Firaz A]

Hello Everyone,
The deadline to submit abstracts to the 4S conference is less than a couple of weeks away (8th March to be precise), so I’d like to draw your attention to an open panel we are organizing about the “Technology Needs of Muslim Communities Around the World”. The complete description of the panel is available on the 4S website<https://www.4sonline.org/178-technology-needs-of-the-muslim-communities-around-the-world/>, which I have also included in this email. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.
Thanks.

178: Technology Needs of the Muslim Communities Around the World
This panel will seek to understand what it means to practice good relations between technologies and humans who adhere to the Islamic way of life. Islam is one of the world’s dominant (23% of the world identify as Muslim) and fastest-growing major religion. While there is much scholarship that focuses on Islam’s spiritual and cultural aspects, there is a paucity of research that considers the relationship between Islam and modern computing technologies. We call for research that focuses on understanding the designs, (non)uses, improvisations, and regulations around the “techno-spiritual” practices of Muslim populations globally.
We construe technology broadly and welcome scholarship that offers a more nuanced understanding of Islam and technology design from various scholarly traditions, including sociology, law, anthropology, communication, STS, environmental science, political science, social work, gender studies, health and philosophy. We define “Islam” as an umbrella term for representing different practices of Islam around the world. We hope to contribute to discussions of how technologies shape and are, in turn, shaped by the religious practices within Muslim communities. These practices have implications for development, privacy, security, human rights, social justice, health, substance abuse rehabilitation, sustainability, and islamophobia, while also addressing the broader question around the othering of the Islamic faith from modern Science and Technology practices.
In bringing this panel together, we hope to draw attention to Muslim communities’ values and needs, in order to initiate a larger conversation about the technology needs of faith-based communities, which have been largely overlooked by the research community.

On behalf of the organizers,
Firaz Peer.