Méadhbh Mcivor
Biographic Data
| ID | 160164 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Méadhbh Mcivor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Méadhbh |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcivor |
| SIGNATURE | MCIVOR M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0836-4274 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
“We Live in Arizona, We Never Get Wins”
This paper argues that Arizona, as a border state, is a critical location from which to research and teach the relationship between law and religion in the contemporary United States. Drawing on legal cases involving religious activism in the borderlands and ethnographic fieldwork with a progressive religious community in Southern Arizona, I suggest that this Arizonan material can encourage our students to question the borders of both religion an…
‘And You and Me are Free to Be. . .’ Us and Them
This article asks how freedom might serve as a comparative category for anthropology and proposes that we approach ‘freedom talk’ as an act of ideological demarcation or boundary making. Drawing on ethnographic research with conservative evangelicals in the UK and Unitarian Universalists in the United States, I show how both communities’ references to choice, liberty and autonomy work to cement group identity not only through a shared vision of t…
Cross‐Cultural Reflections on Evangelical Legal Activism
Liberal Creeds
Liberal Creeds:Signs of Belief in the US Suburbs Méadhbh McIvor On a recent research trip to Arizona, I was struck by the number of brightly colored "We Believe . . ." signs gracing the gardens of affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods in Phoenix and Tucson.1 Dotted throughout what tend to be well-manicured and surprisingly green lawns (surprising, given their location in the desert), these signs showcase the liberal credentials of the relev…
Honouring Their Waking Lives”
Partition and/as Political Theology
Ex-gay activism and the reification of sexual identity in law
The increasing visibility of sexualities beyond heterosexual, gay/lesbian, and bisexual is often associated with progressive politics and the questioning of heteronormativity. Yet non-majoritarian sexualities can also include self-identifications premised upon an opposition to LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion, including those who identify as "ex-gay." Drawing on fieldwork with evangelical Christian activists in London, UK, this paper uses a court ca…
Who Wants to Be (Called) Religious
Drawing on recent work in the field of law and religion, this paper focuses on the skepticism often displayed towards a term that is simultaneously enabling and limiting: that of “religion.” Regardless of our interrogation of it, this terminology is operative in the world—not only among the scholars who frame it as a second-order category, but among our interlocutors, kinship networks, and public figures. Given the baggage that often accompanies …
Representing God
Over the past two decades, a growing number of Christians in England have gone to court to enforce their right to religious liberty. Funded by conservative lobby groups and influenced by the legal strategies of their American peers, these claimants — registrars who conscientiously object to performing the marriages of same-sex couples, say, or employees asking for exceptions to uniform policies that forbid visible crucifixes — highlight the uneas…
Representing God
Histories of Law and Religion
THE LAW OF ORGANIZED RELIGIONS: BETWEEN ESTABLISHMENT AND SECULARISM By Rivers, Julian Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010 Pp. 400. Hardcover, $120.00. CHRISTIAN SLAVERY: CONVERSION AND RACE IN THE PROTESTANT ATLANTIC WORLD By Gerbner, Katharine Philadelphia, PN: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018 Pp. 296. Paper, $24.95. LAW AND IDENTITY IN COLONIAL SOUTH ASIA: PARSI LEGAL CULTURE, 1772–1947 By Sharafi, Mitra Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Un…
Rights and Relationships
This paper uses evangelical reflections on the meaning of “rights” to explore the juridification of religion in contemporary England. Drawing on sixteen months of participatory fieldwork with evangelicals in London, I argue that English evangelicals’ critiques of Christian-interest litigation reflect the interaction of local theologies with developments in the law’s regulation of religion, developments that have contributed to the relativization …
Human Rights and Broken Cisterns
Although human rights are often framed as the result of centuries of Western Christian thought, many English evangelicals are wary of the U.K.'s recent embrace of rights-based law. Yet this wariness does not preclude their use of human rights instruments in the courts. Drawing upon fieldwork with Christian lobbyists and lawyers in London, I argue that evangelical activists instrumentalise rights-based law so as to undermine the universalist claim…
Religious Freedom and the Politics of Empire
Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion. By Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015 Pp. 216. Paper, $22.95 Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power. By Anna Su. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 296. Hardcover, $41.00 Politics of Religious Freedom. Edited by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Peter G. Danchin. Chicago: Universi…
Carnal Exhibitions
This article presents an anthropological account of the European Court of Human Rights' approach to material religion. Focusing on a range of cases involving an alleged violation of Article 9 – the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion – in relation to such diverse religious objects as cassette players, incense, crucifixes, photographs and cross necklaces, it draws on ethnographic studies of material culture to suggest a disconnect…
Human Rights and Broken Cisterns
Although human rights are often framed as the result of centuries of Western Christian thought, many English evangelicals are wary of the U.K.'s recent embrace of rights-based law. Yet this wariness does not preclude their use of human rights instruments in the courts. Drawing upon fieldwork with Christian lobbyists and lawyers in London, I argue that evangelical activists instrumentalise rights-based law so as to undermine the universalist claim…
Ex-gay activism and the reification of sexual identity in law
The increasing visibility of sexualities beyond heterosexual, gay/lesbian, and bisexual is often associated with progressive politics and the questioning of heteronormativity. Yet non-majoritarian sexualities can also include self-identifications premised upon an opposition to LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion, including those who identify as "ex-gay." Drawing on fieldwork with evangelical Christian activists in London, UK, this paper uses a court ca…
Carnal Exhibitions
This article presents an anthropological account of the European Court of Human Rights' approach to material religion. Focusing on a range of cases involving an alleged violation of Article 9 – the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion – in relation to such diverse religious objects as cassette players, incense, crucifixes, photographs and cross necklaces, it draws on ethnographic studies of material culture to suggest a disconnect…
Carnal Exhibitions
This article presents an anthropological account of the European Court of Human Rights' approach to material religion. Focusing on a range of cases involving an alleged violation of Article 9 – the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion – in relation to such diverse religious objects as cassette players, incense, crucifixes, photographs and cross necklaces, it draws on ethnographic studies of material culture to suggest a disconnect…
Religious Freedom and the Politics of Empire
Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion. By Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015 Pp. 216. Paper, $22.95 Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power. By Anna Su. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 296. Hardcover, $41.00 Politics of Religious Freedom. Edited by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Peter G. Danchin. Chicago: Universi…
Rights and Relationships
This paper uses evangelical reflections on the meaning of “rights” to explore the juridification of religion in contemporary England. Drawing on sixteen months of participatory fieldwork with evangelicals in London, I argue that English evangelicals’ critiques of Christian-interest litigation reflect the interaction of local theologies with developments in the law’s regulation of religion, developments that have contributed to the relativization …
Human Rights and Broken Cisterns
Although human rights are often framed as the result of centuries of Western Christian thought, many English evangelicals are wary of the U.K.'s recent embrace of rights-based law. Yet this wariness does not preclude their use of human rights instruments in the courts. Drawing upon fieldwork with Christian lobbyists and lawyers in London, I argue that evangelical activists instrumentalise rights-based law so as to undermine the universalist claim…
Representing God
Over the past two decades, a growing number of Christians in England have gone to court to enforce their right to religious liberty. Funded by conservative lobby groups and influenced by the legal strategies of their American peers, these claimants — registrars who conscientiously object to performing the marriages of same-sex couples, say, or employees asking for exceptions to uniform policies that forbid visible crucifixes — highlight the uneas…
Representing God
Histories of Law and Religion
THE LAW OF ORGANIZED RELIGIONS: BETWEEN ESTABLISHMENT AND SECULARISM By Rivers, Julian Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010 Pp. 400. Hardcover, $120.00. CHRISTIAN SLAVERY: CONVERSION AND RACE IN THE PROTESTANT ATLANTIC WORLD By Gerbner, Katharine Philadelphia, PN: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018 Pp. 296. Paper, $24.95. LAW AND IDENTITY IN COLONIAL SOUTH ASIA: PARSI LEGAL CULTURE, 1772–1947 By Sharafi, Mitra Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Un…
Who Wants to Be (Called) Religious
Drawing on recent work in the field of law and religion, this paper focuses on the skepticism often displayed towards a term that is simultaneously enabling and limiting: that of “religion.” Regardless of our interrogation of it, this terminology is operative in the world—not only among the scholars who frame it as a second-order category, but among our interlocutors, kinship networks, and public figures. Given the baggage that often accompanies …
Honouring Their Waking Lives”
Partition and/as Political Theology
Ex-gay activism and the reification of sexual identity in law
The increasing visibility of sexualities beyond heterosexual, gay/lesbian, and bisexual is often associated with progressive politics and the questioning of heteronormativity. Yet non-majoritarian sexualities can also include self-identifications premised upon an opposition to LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion, including those who identify as "ex-gay." Drawing on fieldwork with evangelical Christian activists in London, UK, this paper uses a court ca…
Liberal Creeds
Liberal Creeds:Signs of Belief in the US Suburbs Méadhbh McIvor On a recent research trip to Arizona, I was struck by the number of brightly colored "We Believe . . ." signs gracing the gardens of affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods in Phoenix and Tucson.1 Dotted throughout what tend to be well-manicured and surprisingly green lawns (surprising, given their location in the desert), these signs showcase the liberal credentials of the relev…
Cross‐Cultural Reflections on Evangelical Legal Activism
“We Live in Arizona, We Never Get Wins”
This paper argues that Arizona, as a border state, is a critical location from which to research and teach the relationship between law and religion in the contemporary United States. Drawing on legal cases involving religious activism in the borderlands and ethnographic fieldwork with a progressive religious community in Southern Arizona, I suggest that this Arizonan material can encourage our students to question the borders of both religion an…
‘And You and Me are Free to Be. . .’ Us and Them
This article asks how freedom might serve as a comparative category for anthropology and proposes that we approach ‘freedom talk’ as an act of ideological demarcation or boundary making. Drawing on ethnographic research with conservative evangelicals in the UK and Unitarian Universalists in the United States, I show how both communities’ references to choice, liberty and autonomy work to cement group identity not only through a shared vision of t…
Sociology (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (6 works) · Religious studies (6 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works)