Overhauling Interreligious Dialogue for Peacebuilding

During, and especially since the end of the Yugoslav secessionist wars in the 1990s, interreligious dialogue became a central tool in the continuous efforts to promote peaceful coexistence in the multicultural and multireligious societies in the Balkans. Presenting the major points in a sociological theory of interreligious dialogue for peace building (IRDPB) which I developed together with Patrice Brodeur in Religion as a Conversation Starter: Interreligious Dialogue for Peacebuilding in the Balkans (published with Continuum in the UK in 2009 and subsequently translated into Bulgarian in 2010 and into Bosnian in 2014), in this paper I revisit some of the arguments of the book. I argue that IRDPB should address more explicitly political and economic concerns and issues related to poverty and various forms of inequality and exclusion. I also suggest the need for a gender-critical perspective on IRDPB