Jin Y. Park, AAR President 2024
Every day, we encounter violence. War, police brutality, sexual assault, and gun violence all directly or indirectly overshadow our lives. Violence, however, is not limited to its physical and visible forms: it is embedded in the structure of our society, in our thinking, and in the language we use. How, then, should we respond to violence? Can responding to violence with violence solve the problems we face? And how can we envision nonviolence in the midst of such rampant violence?
Nonviolence has long been a vital teaching of many religious traditions, but has the study of religion sufficiently engaged with this topic? This year, I invite the AAR to take up the issues of violence and nonviolence and explore the meanings and value of nonviolence and how the study of religion envisions practicing it in our times.
In that context, I also invite the AAR to consider the question of marginality. The use of violence is directly related to the hierarchical understanding of beings and valuation of their lives. Has religion stood with those who are at the center or at the margin? Are the margin and the center dualistically fixed in our lives? How has the study of religion responded to these issues, and how could these issues influence the study of religion?
Reconfiguring the nature of violence and reenvisioning nonviolence and the relationship between the margin and the center can be a first step to transforming our polarized world into a more equitable one. I invite the AAR to explore this possibility.