Project dldl/ድልድል Annual Conference 2022: Call for Submissions

Domestic Violence-Gender-Faith: Promoting integrated and decolonial approaches to domestic violence cross-culturally

Conference Date: 11-12 November 2022

Where: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (subject to security conditions) with virtual contributions

Deadline for submissions: 30 June 2022

Project dldl/ድልድል is a UKRI-funded research and innovation project dedicated to the development and strengthening of religio-culturally sensitive domestic violence alleviation systems in Ethiopia, Eritrea and the UK. dldl/ድልድል means ‘bridge’ in Tigrigna language, a term that reflects the project’s aim to bridge different disciplines, sectors and stakeholders to achieve a more reflexive, decolonial and integrated approach to addressing domestic violence in religious communities. The project works to generate new research and evidence on how religious beliefs, theology and the clergy can contribute to the deterrence of domestic violence and to raise awareness around the religio-cultural parameters of domestic violence among practitioners in government and the non-governmental sectors so as to promote more integrated faith-sensitive domestic violence support systems for victims and perpetrators.

The project aims to achieve its impact by facilitating collaboration across numerous sectors and stakeholder groups, and by encouraging cross-cultural learning through South–North knowledge exchange. We are especially keen to reverse the historical dominance of Northern societies in setting theoretical paradigms and in dictating practices within domestic violence and gender-based violence research and practice internationally.

The Project dldl/ድልድል Annual Conference 2022 will aim to promote these objectives by bringing together religious, secular, government and non-governmental stakeholders working to address domestic violence in the project countries and internationally to facilitate the communication of new evidence and to promote cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral knowledge exchange and collaborations. It will also provide the platform for the project team, partner organisations and collaborators to share their activities, findings and lessons with a more international audience.

Submissions are invited from all relevant stakeholders internationally. These can cover any topic related to the project’s objectives and thematic areas, which are listed below.

CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• Decolonial and indigenous approaches to researching domestic violence, especially methods that consider linguistic limitations and cross-cultural differences in definitions and understandings of domestic violence;
• Research ethics in conducting domestic violence, with a focus on safeguarding and safety risks and how these can be mitigated in culturally-appropriate ways and in different legal frameworks and data management laws.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INTERVENTION DESIGN

• Culture-sensitive and faith-informed methods of intervention development
• Integrating survivors of domestic violence in the development of interventions
• Decolonising intervention development using participatory, locally-grounded, community-centred and partnerships-based approaches 

FAITH-BASED INTERVENTIONS TO RESPOND TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• Efforts to train clergy and seminarians in gender issues and marital and domestic violence issues, and to streamline such training in seminary education;
• Types and effects of religious counselling for individuals and couples, faith-based treatment programmes for perpetrators or spiritual psychotherapy approaches involving victims/survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence;
• Approaches to measure the effectiveness of faith-sensitive interventions designed and implemented across diverse cultural contexts.

INTEGRATED AND MULTISECTORAL APPROACHES TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• Intersections between religious beliefs, human psychology/mental health and domestic violence and the implications for responding to domestic violence more effectively;
• Approaches that integrate the clergy, theology, religious beliefs or spiritual parameters in domestic violence interventions and psychosocial support, and ways to measure the effectiveness of such initiatives.

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• Translating research results into practical directions and tools for domestic violence practitioners, clergy and government and non-governmental providers;
• Learning from good practices in the wider Global South and exchanging knowledge with the Global North to inform more integrated, faith-sensitive approaches;
• using media, communication technologies and creative industries in innovative and practical ways to raise awareness and achieve impact

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN MIGRATION

• Experiences of and responses to domestic violence in migrant and ethnic minority groups, analysed with sensitivity to gender and faith parameters;
• The role and influence of clergy and religious beliefs in migrant communities and specifically in responding to family and marriage-related problems;
• Measuring the effectiveness of faith-sensitive approaches and interventions to respond to domestic violence in migrant and ethnic minority populations.

SUBMISSION FORMATS

We invite submissions from researchers, practitioners, psychologists, social workers, clergy, seminarians and activists from across the world in any of the formats identified below:

Physical presentations

These are only open to project collaborators, team members and other individuals  who will attend the physical conference in Ethiopia. Details about physical presentations will be communicated closer to the date.

Video submissions

Recorded presentation: The recording should not exceed 35 minutes of duration and should be of high audio quality. The recording can be submitted as a mobile recording, Zoom video link or Zoom MP4 file, or in any other equivalent format.

Visual submissions

Poster: Posters should not exceed one page and should be submitted in PDF format.

Short film: Short films should not exceed 35 minutes. They should be uploaded on YouTube on a creator’s account prior to submission and should include subtitles if and where possible for international accessibility.

Audio submissions

Podcast: Podcasts should not exceed 35 minutes. They should be uploaded on Soundcloud on a creator’s account prior to submission.

Submissions can be:

• Empirical studies and on-going research projects
• Reports and findings from government or organisational programmes
• Ethnographic experiences from the field
• Reflective or analytical pieces that aim to provoke critical thinking in the community of diverse stakeholders we seek to connect;
• Personal accounts and testimonies
• Other creative contributions

Please note that the submissions will be published on the project’s website on the Conference Event page following the event.

Accepted submissions will also be considered for publication in a Conference Proceedings Edition published by the project team.

SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS

If you are interested in making a submission in any of the above themes and formats, please contact the project’s dedicated email soasflf@soas.ac.uk to express your interest.  Please title the email “Project dldl Annual Conference 2022 Abstract Submission.”

At this stage a request an abstract of 250 words that should cover the format of the presentation (physical, virtual), the topic and the unique contribution that this can make to further the project’s objectives and to advance discussion on the conference themes.

Please also include a short biographical note for each contributor not exceeding 150 words each.

TRAVEL FUNDS

Provided that a physical conference can be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, some funding for attending the conference in person will be made available for collaborators and partners of the project. External participants may attend in person, but they will need to cover the cost of travel and accommodation using their own funds. However, the planning team in Ethiopia will be happy to help with booking accommodation and advising on matters of travel.