Call for Chapters

Edited Volume on Can I Believe?: Postcolonial Religiosity in the Post-Truth Era

Edited by Fardun Ali Middya & Md Ujan Ahmad

In the contemporary world, where public discourse is increasingly driven by emotional connection, identity narratives, and algorithms instead of verifiably accurate facts, the very idea of truth appears reduced. What does it feel like to dwell in a world where belief is in a state of perpetual flux and being remoulded and reshaped by disinformation, colonial remainders, and emotive constituencies in particular? More pressingly, how do religious communities in postcolonial settings respond to the moral, spiritual, and epistemological stakes of this post-truth world?

As Hannah Arendt opines, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction… no longer exists” (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951). In postcolonial contexts, where the borders between reality and narrative have traditionally been blurred by colonial discourses, the narratives of truth disseminated by missionaries, and the narratives’ hegemony, the present post-truth era is not a rupture, but a dangerous continuation. The edited volume, Can I Believe?: Postcolonial Religiosity in the Post-Truth Era, seeks to critically explore the convergences of religion, disinformation, identity, and memory, interrogating the complex terrain of faith under digital siege. As Achille Mbembe asserts, “To be postcolonial is to live with and against the episteme of conquest” (On the Postcolony, 2001). This is not merely an academic critique but an epistemological one in the sense that religion, often one of the last remnants of indigenous forms of authority, is both a weapon and an instrument within the controversial economies of truth. Beyond that, it examines how religious communities can provide a source of ethical and epistemic support for resistance, restoration, and reconciliation.

The notion of “post-truth”, popularised by the Oxford Dictionary in 2016, may seem like an emergent political illness. However, as Steve Tesich foreshadowed in 1992, “We are free to believe whatever we want and we are free to accept whatever reality we prefer” (The Nation, 1992). The “freedom” that Tesich speaks of becomes especially dangerous in the postcolonial Global South, where religious faith is generally bound up with colonial trauma, identity politics, and digital populism. Religious traditions in these contexts offer not only systems of meaning but ontological groundings, as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak suggests, “Religion, rather than being just a belief system, is an infrastructure of belonging” (A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, 1999). Yet these infrastructures are increasingly co-opted by majoritarian states, foreign intelligence networks, or ethnonationalist populisms, for political control and ideological warfare. Moreover, in a world of deepfakes and digital tribalism, Jean Baudrillard’s insight into “simulacra and simulation” rings with accuracy: “It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real” (Simulacra and Simulation, 1981). As religious discourse, scripture, and ritual practices enter fractured and often distorted online spaces, the simulation of religion can become more powerful and more deadly than lived religion.

This book seeks to provide a critical, established, and transregional input into contemporary religious studies, investigating how sets of beliefs are rebuilt, destabilised, and reaffirmed in our post-truth world. Situating religious discourse in the colonial and digital paths of knowledge-making, the book seeks to decentre Western-hegemonic accounts of post-truth, yet with a focus on postcolonial lived epistemologies, especially focusing on South Asia and the Middle East.

“What we are witnessing is not the death of truth, but the global redistribution of its claimants.” - Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity.

Suggested Topics (include but are not limited to):

• Postcolonial Theology and the Epistemology of Truth
• Digital Media, Simulacra, and the Collapse of Religious Authority
• Affective Publics and Religious Emotion in Postcolonial Nations
• Colonial Mythologies and Disinformation in Contemporary Religious Conflicts
• Faith-Based Resistance and the Ethics of Truth
• Gendered Religiosity and the Algorithmic Construction of ‘Virtue’
• Youth, Faith, and Digital Piety in the Global South
• Anti-Fake News Laws and the Silencing of Minority Religious Voices

Submission Guidelines:

• Submit an abstract (250-300 words) within 15 November 2025, along with a short bio (up to 150 words), current affiliation, and email address.
• The intimation of abstracts will be provided by 1 December 2025.
• Selected contributors will be invited to submit full chapters of 4,000–6,000 words by 3 March 2026.
• Submissions must be in 12 font, TNR, 1.5 line spacing, page number (centre-bottom) and follow the APA manual for citation.
• All submissions are to be made in Word document (.docx/.doc) and PDF format.
• Email submissions to: editor.fammua@gmail.com
• Subject Line: Abstract/Paper Submission – Can I Believe?