Paper short abstract:

The paper is based on fieldwork among converts from Catholicism to a female-dominated new religious moment in Poland and explores the role of silence in the religious practices and everyday life of its members. Silence is presented as a response to the competing demands of post-socialist transition.

Paper long abstract:

The paper is based on fieldwork among converts from Catholicism to a marginal Hindu-rooted, female dominated new religious moment in Poland and explores the role of silence in the religious practices and everyday lives of its members. I argue that silence is a performative act in the reconstruction of my informants' gender identity and is perceived by them as form of empowerment.

From the perspective of feminist discourse, particularly Western liberal feminism, silence is often interpreted as lacking of power and opposite to speech. But drawing on my informants' experiences, silence can also be understood as empowering and expressing resistance. I situate my analysis within a context of post-socialist Poland and focus on my informants' - middle age, well-educated urban women - responses to the competing demands of economic and cultural transition, Western style feminism, and Polish Catholicism.