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- Convenors:
-
Eugenia Roussou
(Centre for Research in Anthropology - CRIA, ISCTE-IUL, IN2PAST)
Anna Clot Garrell (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
- Stream:
- Religion
- Location:
- A227
Short Abstract:
Focusing on the interaction between denominational religion and new forms of spirituality, this panel calls for papers that examine the ambivalent space between religious heritages and spiritual utopias in contemporary religiosity, and how this space is constructed at the level of everyday practice.
Long Abstract:
Religiosity, especially in the European context, has long been connected with the heritage of Christianity. However, in recent decades denominational religion appears to be losing its dominance, while new forms of spirituality make an appearance in the global religioscape. Davie's (1994) 'believing without belonging', Heelas and Woodhead's (2005) 'spiritual revolution' and Berger's (2007) 'new religious pluralism' are just a few well-known social scientific paradigms that describe the new reality of religiosity in the twenty-first century. Placing particular emphasis on the challenging interaction between denominational religion and 'new spirituality' (Shimazono 1999), this panel calls for contributions that focus on this interrelation from the scope of denominational religion, contemporary spirituality, or both. Through ethnographic cases that pay close attention to the diverse ways in which religiosity is practised during everyday life, the aim is to attempt to answer the below-mentioned questions: have religious heritages, especially those that belong to the Christian tradition, still play an important role in the global religioscape? Are new forms of spirituality considered to be spiritual utopias or actual religions? What does the space between religious heritages and spiritual utopias consist of, and how is it constructed, challenged, negotiated, lived, practised, especially in current times of socio-economic and political crisis in Europe?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Georgeta Nazarska (State University of Library Studies and IT) Svetla Shapkalova (State University of Library Studies and IT)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines religious values in the contemporary Bulgarian society as intangible cultural heritage. The study is based on anthropological perspective and uses mainly qualitative methods.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines religious values in the contemporary Bulgarian society as intangible cultural heritage. The main task of the paper is to study the crisis of religious values (as a
system of beliefs, moral values, attitudes towards society and people,
religious behavior, and belonging to religious institutions and communities)
and the various strategies of different social groups (clergy, students, and
laity) to overcome it. The study is based on anthropological perspective and uses mainly qualitative
methods - interviews with clergymen of Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish
and Muslim denomination (priests, ministers, rabbis, and imams), laity
(members of religious councils, singers etc.). They are compared with results
of a survey with students from religious and secular Bulgarian universities
and faculties. The research had been done in 2014 with the support of
Bulgarian Council of Religious Communities and the "Religions"
Directorate at the Bulgarian Government.
Anna Clot Garrell (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Paper short abstract:
Monasticism is experiencing an unexpected popularity in the Western world. According to this evidence, the paper explores the vitality of a feminine Benedictine Monastery’s guest quarters by looking at the heterogeneous visitors and the creatively ways they relate to monastic heritage.
Paper long abstract:
Although traditional modes of belonging and participating in traditional religious institutions have declined in contemporary societies, monasteries show an unexpected popularity. Some works have underlined how parallel to vocations’ decline, monasticism is experiencing a period of innovation and experimentation in the Western world (Jonveaux et al., 2014). The attraction and the wish to visit Catholic monasteries has increased (Groot et al., 2014) and, despite traditional hospitality, monastic communities have had to redefine the contact and relationship to the external world. This is the case of a feminine Catholic Benedictine monastery in Catalonia, which has seen how beyond the traditional Catholic visitors, a wide range of people visit the monastery’s guest quarters. Holistic practices enter silently to the monastery, and converge in the guest quarters' spaces and church with the traditional monastic practices and rituals. On the basis of an ethnographic research in the guest quarters of this Benedictine monastery which represents an exception in the Catalan context due to its intergenerational community, the paper explores the following issues: who are these contemporary visitors? Why do they go to monastery? What do they do in the guest quarters? How do they perceive and relate to the Christian heritage that the monastery represents? By addressing these questions the paper shows how the monastery becomes a strategic context to study the complex transformations and intersections of contemporary religiosity in plural and post-parochial societies (Hervieu-Léger, 2011).
Clara Saraiva (ICS, University of Lisbon)
Paper short abstract:
Afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal seek to become institutionalized religious groups and to conquer a place in society similar to the one Catholicism enjoys. This paper will explore the tensions that result from such situation.
Paper long abstract:
The afro-Brazilian religions (Umbanda and Candomblé) have expanded immensely in Portugal in the last twenty years. Although Brazilians constitute the major group of immigrants in the country, it is the Portuguese that are attracted to these cults. The Brazilians present are individuals with special ritual duties, such as the pai or mãe de santo, the heads of the temples. The Portuguese feel that going to the terreiro on Saturday and the Catholic mass on Sunday is not a problem and the discourse of the religious leaders stress the same ideas, especially in the case of Umbanda. There are also many individuals who frequent terreiros without a strong religious affiliation to them. They come because they are attracted to new forms of spirituality not directly connected to a denominational religion, searching for solutions for their problems, even more so in a time of economic and social crisis in Portugal. On the other hand, Afro-Brazilian religious groups all seek an institutional position, constitute themselves and NGOs and fight for their right to become legitimate denominational religions in the country. Drawing on ethnographic material, this paper will explore such tensions, and will reflect on the connections between institutionalized Catholicism and these newly imported religious traditions.
Eugenia Roussou (Centre for Research in Anthropology - CRIA, ISCTE-IUL, IN2PAST)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on comparative fieldwork between Portugal and Greece, this paper seeks to explore the interaction between Christianity and ‘new spirituality’, in an attempt to reflect upon the space between Christian heritage and spiritual utopia in the Portuguese and Greek religioscape.
Paper long abstract:
Portugal and Greece, along with their European counterparts, are considered to be traditionally Christian. Their religious heritage, however, is challenged in recent years by the appearance of new forms of spirituality that claim a vivid presence in the Portuguese and Greek religioscape. Drawing on comparative ethnographic fieldwork between Lisbon and Athens, this paper seeks to explore the interaction between Christianity and 'new spirituality' in the two countries. It aims to show in what ways and to what extend contemporary Portuguese and Greek religiosity is still influenced by its main religious heritage, namely Catholic and Orthodox Christianity equivalently, while at the same time being open to other spiritual influences. How does this 'new religious pluralism' (Berger 2007) affect every day religious practice in Lisbon and Athens? Does the appearance of new forms of spirituality indicate a level of alienation from religious heritage and towards a new spiritual reality? And to what degree is this new reality a spiritual utopia instead?
Katerina Vidner Ferkov (Delo )
Paper short abstract:
In 2014 India established a Ministry for Yoga with an intent to preserve their national heritage. While in the past decades yoga became a global phenomena, with a big economic impact, engaging with individual spiritual landscapes as well as cultural environment.
Paper long abstract:
Yoga with its unique physical exercises and spiritual practices seems to occupy our cultural environment: it appears on tea bags, T-shirts, billboards and on magazine pages. It's status outside India is shifting from fitness and spirituality to triviality.
In 2014 Indian government established a Ministry for Yoga with an intent to preserve their national heritage: "India's new minister for yoga has called on his countrymen to reclaim yoga from the West, criticising Indians for ignoring their heritage." Interestingly yoga institutions in Europe and United States of America already exist for a few decades.Yoga Alliance gave certificates to over 60.000 yoga teachers and over 3700 yoga schools. One can practice hormonal yoga, queer yoga, yoga for dogs, naked yoga and other variations. Some even propose that "the market place is the ultimate quality control" when it comes to yoga. The market place of selling knowledge about yoga is indeed open in India and Western countries, but not all perspectives share the same values.
Through the anthropological perspective I observed Indian and Western attitude towards yoga as Indian heritage and as contemporary practice. Did Westerns colonize yoga through the market appropriations or did yoga colonize contemporary spiritual utopias and bank accounts?
This paper will aim to present an anthropological insight based on participant observation of yoga practices in Europe and India.
Mojca Kovačič (ZRC SAZU )
Paper short abstract:
The public expressions of different religions often rise heated responses among the dominant religious community. The paper is presenting how the sounding of religion questions political, social and religious 'stability' of contemporary society.
Paper long abstract:
Religiositiy of Slovenians is strongly connected to Christianity. The majority of inhibitants has not many multiethnic, multireligious or multicultural experiences and different social, religious or cultural expression often evoke polemic reactions in society. Every public expression of different religiosity is expressing power relations in society and is therefore much questioned as it was recently expressed through the reaction of people on the possible building of a mosque in Ljubljana (the first one), as well as on the possible sounding of the Islamic religion.
The paper will focus on the recently officially registered religious community The Zombi Church of Holy Bell Ringing. The central element of their worship is the so called Holy Bell, and bell (one of the main symbols of Christianity) is also the main (sonar) indicator of their religion. This religious community is raising very different political, religious and social questions and problems of the contemporary society and triggers many controversial discussions. In public opinion their actions are also often described as a parody, but The Zombi Church community keeps serious attitude to their public presentations of religiosity and actively works on obtaining believers. The focus will be on the question how the soundings of new religion could draw attention to a number of social and political anomalies.
Beata Labuhn (Zurich University)
Paper short abstract:
This article focuses on the utopia of aesthetic neutrality of multi-faith spaces. It reveals the origins of the concept of neutrality, examines how neutrality is expressed and re-interpreted in multi-faith designs and sketches the discussion about ‘secular domination’ and ‘loss of sacred aura’.
Paper long abstract:
Under influence of globalisation and individualism the religious landscape in the Western World diversifies and intensifies, challenging the secularisation thesis (Cox, 2014; Elshamy, 2013; Taylor, 2007; Asad, 2003; Casanova, 1994).
Recently, the question of how the religious pluralism can be accommodated in the secular public sphere seems to have found its consensus in the aesthetic utopia of neutrality. This article focuses on the aesthetic neutrality of multi-faith spaces. These silence rooms or prayer rooms are meant for 'all religions and none' and are often to be found in places like airports, train stations, highways, hospitals, universities and office buildings of multinationals. These multi-faith spaces are required to be kept as neutral as possible in order to 'not to offend anybody' (Diez de Velasco, 2014; Crompton, 2013; Cadge e.a., 2012; Johnson & Laurence, 2012; Gilliat-Ray, 2010). Against this background this article:
- 1. reveals the concept of neutrality as deriving from liberal politics, military non-alignment, modernist aesthetics and Japanese aesthetics.
- 2. questions whether the neutrality requirement for multi-faith spaces is a sign of secular domination and if it leads to the 'loss of sacred aura'.
- 3. on the basis of the spatial analysis of a selection of multi-faith rooms, the article differentiates in interpretations of neutrality: neutrality as nature, neutrality as a search for universal religious symbolism, neutrality as 'laisser-faire' and neutrality as camouflage or 'melting into the context'.
- 4. briefly points out to possible alternative aesthetic concepts for multi-faith spaces.