Contribution short abstract:

For members of a Pentecostal church in the Kingdom of Tonga, becoming a ‘good Christian’ entails negotiating between and reconciling what their pastor labels ‘island mentality’ and a Pentecostalism heavily influenced by the US based parent church.

Contribution long abstract:

The majority of people in the Kingdom of Tonga identify as Christian. Inside a Pentecostal church in the country’s capital Nuku’alofa, a pastor wanted his congregation to become ‘good Christians’ in the way his US based parent church desired them to be. However, he faced one issue: a mode of indigenous subjectivity that he called ‘island mentality’. As a Pacific Islander himself, the pastor intimately understood how this local Tongan ‘island mentality,’ and its corresponding field of cultural practices, were shaped and enacted. The ‘island mentality’ sometimes contradicted Christianity as defined by the American parent church, taken to include living like Jesus, studying the bible, and taking part in world evangelism. My paper thus poses the question: for members of this Pentecostal church, how is the tension between local Tongan ‘island mentality’ and American Pentecostalism reconciled and negotiated in their pursuit of becoming ‘good Christians’? The entire congregation were socialized in other mainline Christian denominations that were more aligned with local Tongan cultural frameworks. Many church members had to leave behind their former church, and consequently often also their kin, to become a ‘good Christian’. These interconnected translations of different religious and cultural settings across local and global contexts interacted to generate novel cross-cultural perspectives from the believers, the pastor, and from myself. With different objectives, we collectively navigated through plural cultural and religious landscapes that positioned us between the uniform idea of a ‘good Christian’ and a personal impetus to shape the identity we desired.

Contribution short abstract:

In funeral culture religion is often associated with various interpretations of postmortal existence. Does a binary (secular/religious) perspective do justice to the complex funeral events? I approach non-church funerals focusing on positionalities of funeral experts between divergent normativities.

Contribution long abstract:

Common knowledge about funerary services and mourning rituals which take place outside of the Christian-church context often assume these customs to be counter-religious or non-denominational, in the least, ideologically unbound. This can lead to (aspects of) such ceremonial observances – what I refer to collectively as ‘non-church funeral culture’ – as being alluded to as secular or non-religious.

In the context of funeral culture, however, religion is prominently associated with the question of existential interpretations, ideas and expectations of a post-mortal existence, however it may be conceived. In my contribution, I explore the question of whether these presuppositions do justice to the complex events of the funeral context. Furthermore, I subsume that the funerary actions of the non-church speakers and celebrants (including various references to religion, here conceptualized as ’Non*Religion’) can be explored through an ethnographic focus on the specific positionality of these funeral experts between divergent normativities.

In my doctoral project (University of Freiburg), I do not, however, definitively position non-church funeral culture as opposed to religion as described above, but rather, I propose the terminology of ‘Non*Religion’ as a working concept in order to better grasp the complexities contained within non-church funeral culture; interacting with, and adjacent to, broader discourses on nonreligion and secularity, but not in direct opposition to religion. Thus, I use a relational approach to discuss the non-church funeral culture context as a religion-related field where issues of ’Non*Religion’ are continually being (re-)negotiated.

Contribution short abstract:

This paper examines the ritual act of crawling at Marian pilgrimage sites across Europe as a dynamic expression of local religious belief shaped by global cultural, historical, and social influences.

Contribution long abstract:

This paper examines the ritual act of crawling at Marian pilgrimage sites across Europe as a dynamic expression of local religious belief shaped by global cultural, historical, and social influences. It raises the anthropological question of how embodied practices such as crawling mediate relationships between individuals, sacred spaces, and broader cultural narratives, while also reflecting political, territorial, local, and global claims. Based on multi-sited ethnography conducted at Marian sites, including the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa, Poland, the Santuario della Madonna del Lares in Trentino, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal, the shrine of Saint Xenia in Saint Petersburg, and the Scala Sancta in Rome, the findings of this study illustrate how pilgrims negotiate doubts, and politics through the embodied practice of mimesis. Drawing from Aristotle’s conceptualization of mimesis as not merely replication but an active, creative re-enactment that fosters learning, crawling emerges as a profound imitation that evokes both developmental movements associated with infancy and the corporeal suffering of Christ’s Passion. These practices reenact a bodily journeys that emulate medieval predecessors while creating a ritual time zone that intertwines ancient imagery with contemporary faith. The act of crawling thus re-embodies dual temporalities: the medieval gestures of penance and the political-theological narrative. This blending links physical endurance to narratives of national redemption. Additionally, crawling rituals evoke connections to sacred lands and reinforce territorial belonging, demonstrating how body-mimetic rituals intersect with national sentiments, political histories, and global-local dynamics.

Contribution short abstract:

This paper examines the role of ritual practices in shaping ethnicity and identity in the Eastern Himalayas, focusing on the Indigenous Rong community. It highlights how Rong shamans navigate between ritual practice and belonging in a multiethnic and multireligious contested social space.

Contribution long abstract:

This paper examines the interplay between ritual practices, ethnicity, and identity in the multiethnic societies of the Eastern Himalayas, where ethnic movements and the quest for recognition shape social and cultural dynamics. Using ethnographic data from the Rong community, the study focuses on shamans (Mun-Bongthing) as ritual practitioners who serve as custodians of the Indigenous religion, healers, and mediators between human and other-than-human entities. These rituals, rooted in oral traditions and religious cosmologies, emphasize communication with deities, spirits, and ancestors, highlighting their agency in co-inhabiting the social space with humans.

The paper explores the dual dimensions of ritual practice: as a site of localized spiritual engagement and as a performative act embedded in broader ethnic and political claim-making. For instance, community rituals like the Chyu-Rum-Fat are recontextualized as public programs to assert Indigenous identity, while private rituals prioritize healing and negotiation with deities. These practices are further complicated in multiethnic contexts, where ritual practitioners navigate competing demands from communities, and different recognizing agents such as political organizations, the state, and the deities themselves. This paper seeks to understand how indigeneity, religiosity, and ethnic boundaries shape and reshape the interrelated nature of Rong shamanic ontologies.

Through interviews with shamans and observations of rituals, the paper reveals how the Lepcha cosmology accommodates diverse agents—human, non-human, and other-than-human—while situating ritual practices as essential to Indigenous communities' survival, health, and identity. The study ultimately contributes to understanding the dynamic interplay between ritual, ethnicity, and belonging in contested social spaces.

Contribution short abstract:

Despite the crisis of Catholicism in Cologne, Italian religious life remains vibrant. I explore how the “experience group” of the Italian Catholic Mission uses religious knowledge and practices to navigate migration, religious decline, and existential crises in this shifting religious landscape.

Contribution long abstract:

The Catholic Church in Cologne and North-Rhine-Westphalia is undergoing a significant crisis, with thousands of members leaving its fold. This decline reflects broader challenges to Catholicism in Europe. Amidst this crisis, Italian religious life in Cologne remains vibrant, raising questions about its survival within this shifting religious landscape: can migrants mobilize their religious knowledge and practices as a source of power to resist and navigate the challenges of daily life in this context?

Drawing on Ernesto de Martino’s concept of the “crisis of presence,” I re-examine the role of religion in dealing with experience of ‘crisis’ and modes of revitalising ‘presence’ in the transforming religious landscape of catholic life in Cologne and (Southern) Europe. I explore how Italians in Cologne leverage religion to address (1) the challenges of migration in the multi-cultural context of the city, (2) the broader religious decline and (3) their personal existential crises.

Among the different constellations of Italian Catholics in Cologne, I focus on the “experience group” of the Italian Catholic Mission. I examine how members of this group navigate the transnational space between Naples and Cologne to forge and re-mediate religious practices. By creating spaces for sharing knowledge and practices—both religious and beyond—and offering mutual support, the group empowers its members to confront their crises. I argue that religious agency emerges “between crisis and presence” and must be reworked continuously among those on the move and their networks to provide tools for navigating instability and fostering revitalization in times of crisis.