CFP Rethinking Spirituality Through Gender and Youth

Panel coordinated by Mia Lövheim, Kristin Aune and Anna Fedele

at the Conference of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR), July 2015, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

RETHINKING  SPIRITUALITY  THROUGH  GENDER  AND  YOUTH

Call for papers

This session aims to debate the conceptual distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’, which has been widely used in the sociology of religion. Drawing on the changing religious practices of the “Baby-boom generation” and the public interest in the “new age” phenomena in the 1980s, the concept of spirituality became crucial in describing a shift from institutional religion, characterized by adherence to traditional religious doctrines, to newer forms of flexible, individual and holistic religiosity. In previous research spirituality has, on the one side, been interpreted as a sign of religious decline through privatization and, on the other, hailed as a way for religion to accommodate to the new situations faced by late modern social actors. This session critically explores whether ‘spirituality’ is a useful concept for studying the ways in which people live out religio-spiritual lives in the twenty-first century. It does so through the lenses of gender and youth, two aspects of social identity that have received significant new attention from religion scholars since the late twentieth century. Scholars such as Woodhead (2012) have advocated ‘spirituality’ as better able to reflect the complex lives of women and young people, and as more open to material and emotional aspects of religious experience and practice. A new body of work, including Fedele and Knibbe’s (2013) collection of ethnographic studies of gender, critique the spirituality/religion distinction. Scholars such as McGuire (2008) and Ammerman (2013) have argued for the concept of ‘lived religion’ or ‘everyday religion’ as a better alternative. This session invites scholars conducting empirical studies of youth and gender to contribute their findings to help answer these questions: How, if at all, is the distinction between religion and spirituality helpful in interpreting the experiences of these social groups, especially through embodied and sensory encounters with the divine? How can the religio-spiritual practices of young people, women and gender-marginal men (e.g. men marginalised by ethnicity, sexuality or non-conformity to gender stereotypes) contribute to a development of concepts and theories about religion and spirituality?

Submit papers online through the ISSR website

 

Repenser la spiritualité à travers le genre et la jeunesse

Dans ce panel onla distinction entre « religion » et « spiritualité », largement utilisée dans la sociologie de la religion. S’appuyant sur les pratiques religieuses changeantes de la « génération du baby-boom » et l’intérêt public pour les phénomènes « new age » dans les années 1980, le concept de spiritualité devint crucial pour décrire le passage de la religion institutionnelle à des formes récentes de religiosité flexible, individuelle et holiste. Dans les recherches antérieures, la spiritualité a été interprétée comme un signe du déclin du religieux via la privatisation mais ausi comme un moyen pour la religion de s’accommoder aux nouvelles situations modernes.

On s’interroge si la « spiritualité » est un concept utile pour étudier les vécus religieux-spirituels des individus au XXIème siècle. Cela sera fait à travers les categories de genre et jeunesse, qui ont suscité une nouvelle attention de la part des chercheurs de la religion. Des penseurs comme Woodhead (2012) ont soutenu que la notion de « spiritualité » est mieux capable de refléter les vies complexes des femmes et des jeunes gens, et qu’ elle est plus ouverte aux aspects matériels et émotionnels de l’expérience religieuse. Un nouveau corpus de textes sur le genre tel que Fedele et Knibbe (2013), critique la distinction entre spiritualité et religion et McGuire (2008) et Ammerman (2013) ont affirmé que le concept de « religion vécue » ou de « religion quotidienne » est une meilleure alternative.

Nous invitons les chercheurs conduisant des études empiriques sur la jeunesse et le genre à répondre à ces questions : Comment, si c’est le cas, la distinction entre religion et spiritualité est-elle utile dans l’interprétation des expériences de ces groupes sociaux, surtout à travers des rencontres corporelles et sensorielles avec le divin? Comment les pratiques religieuses-spirituelles des jeunes, des femmes et des hommes marginalisés du point de vue du genre (ex. les hommes marginalisés à cause de leur appartenance ethnique, de leur sexualité ou de leur non-conformité aux stéréotypes de genre) peuvent-elles contribuer à un développement de théories sur la religion et de la spiritualité ?

 

Call for papers EASA 2012

The call for papers for the panel on

“The importance of Uncertainty in Vernacular Religion”

for the conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists 2012

 to be held in Paris, Nanterre 10/07/2012 – 13/07/2012 is now open.

Dealing with Doubts, Putting to Test:

the Importance of Uncertainty in Vernacular Religion

Coordinators: Élisabeth Claverie (CNRS, Paris) and Anna Fedele (CRIA, Lisbon University Institute

We want to explore the ways in which dogmas and rituals are transformed in vernacular religion. We call for ethnographically grounded papers that analyze the role of uncertainty in religious practices focusing on the way in which people put to test the efficacy of rituals, sacred sites and figures.

In the last decades social scientists and religious historians have emphasized the need to pay more attention to religion as lived and practiced. Vernacular religion also identified as “popular” religion is finally being recognized in its own value especially thanks to the work of scholars focusing on Christianity such as William Christian, Tanya Luhrmann, Meredith McGuire, Robert Orsi and others. Contrary to the assumption that religion works as a sort of magical remedy against uncertainty, providing people with a set of answers and solutions they totally embrace and rely upon, what emerges from ethnographical accounts is that uncertainty and doubt are inherent in lived religion.

In this panel we want to explore the ways in which the dogmas and rituals created by religious institutions are creatively used and transformed in the everyday lived religion of people. We call for ethnographically grounded papers that explore the role of uncertainty and doubt in religious practices focusing on the way in which people put to test the efficacy of rituals as well as the healing power of sacred figures and sites. How do people establish that a certain religion works for them in a historical period in which they are increasingly aware of the existence of religious traditions that are different from the one they grew up with? How do they criticize with their own religious creativity the dogmas and rules of the religious tradition they belong to?