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- Convenors:
-
Stephane Voell
(University of Marburg)
Michèle Baussant (CNRS, ISP)
Barbara Peveling (University of Tuebingen)
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- Formats:
- Workshops
- Location:
- V408
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 11 July, -, -, Thursday 12 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Paris
Short Abstract:
The workshop explores processes associated with construction of space, place and religious rituals in the context of migration. We want to focus on ways the landscapes and the religious rituals taking place in them, figure in creating, recreating the presence, history and memory of social groups.
Long Abstract:
Migration as an individual stress situation produces certain forms of anxiety for the moving actors, as well as for the ones left behind. The resolution of this fear condition finds often its expression in religious rituals anchored in the ancient or new environment (the transformation of the local in territories of grace like the Notre Dame de Santa Cruz sanctuary in Nimes). Furthermore the connections to the spatial and ritual origins before migration should be considered and elucidated as links through time and space.
New forms of acquisition of space in the frame of recent models of migration will be explored. The modalities of transnational realities as consequence of migration in connection with the role of religion and historical memory will be illuminated. The circulation of beliefs as "portable practices" (CSORDAS 2009) as for example the transmission of African religions to the New World are to be examined.
We want to elaborate these key marks concerning space and place, location religious ritual and cultural memory. Contributions should illustrate how conceptual, ideological and material dimensions of space, in the frame of the uncertainty situation that presents migration, are central to the production of religious and cultural life. The workshop wants to assemble key anthropological communications that challenge definition of space, place and religion in the context of migration. They should reveal how the ideological and material dimensions of space and landscape characteristics in situations of uncertainty and disquiet like migration, are central to the production of religious life and cultural memory.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 11 July, 2012, -Paper short abstract:
A Mexican village organises feasts involving the whole village making it visible for outsiders. Migrants participate in the village and transfer feasts to the US. There they have to organise them differently. The exchange of money, goods, and videos transforms the fiestas into transnational events.
Paper long abstract:
The migrant village of Patamban celebrates various kinds of fiestas. Three feasts are of special importance for the village: the Holy Week, and fiestas for Jesus Nazareno and Cristo Rey. These feasts comprise the whole village: the people and the location. Some permanent places, the church, stationary effigies, and way shrines, are visited always. Other ritual places are changing every year. Each feast implies processions taking different routes with different adornments and different actors. They are gaining importance continuously attracting migrants and outsiders alike. The village is putting itself on the regional but also transnational map.
The migrants are an important group of participants. They might be feast holders, support their parents, or just use the feasts to visit the village. Not all migrants can return home, however they participate in the feast: they send money or look at the fiesta videos. Recently, the migrants started to have their own fiestas. They ordered a copy of Jesus Nazareno and started to hold his feast. As there are no stationary places, the migrants are turning the sites available into theirs using the traditional adornments. As the participants are living apart, the rituals have to be organised accordingly. Thus the places, time allocation, and participants differ substantially from the home village. The home village is taking part too, sending items and looking at the fiesta videos too. Patamban's feasts are becoming transnational - even more so as the videos are uploaded, exchanged and commented in the Internet.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the transformation of space into place by Russian Orthodox Christians. Specifically, I will analyze the role of sacred objects in infusing foreign landscapes with familiar religious and cultural meanings, and in the re-mapping of spiritual traditions into new geographies.
Paper long abstract:
This paper will discuss the transformation of space into place by Russian Orthodox Christians in the United States. Specifically, I will analyze the role of sacred objects (icons) in infusing foreign landscapes with familiar religious and cultural meanings, and in the re-mapping of spiritual traditions into new geographies.
Icons in Orthodox Christianity are tightly connected with intimate spiritual experiences of the divine, mobilizing the senses and steering the imagination. Yet they also can act as mediators between individual believers and events in social and political life - as will be discussed in the case of visit of two miracle working icons from Russia to Orthodox churches in the United States. Based on three years of ethnographic study and interviews with parishioners (almost all of them recent immigrants to the US) of one Russian Orthodox church in Southern California, this paper will illustrate how icons alleviate the uncertainty of cultural uprootedness by infusing new landscapes with symbolic meanings and memories of home and national religious tradition. I will draw from contemporary anthropological theories of mobility and transnational communities, in which space is no longer considered to be a container for native cultures, rather it is viewed as a process of constant remapping of cultural and religious traditions onto new geographies, and re-creation of new spatial arrangements that synthesize local, regional and global dynamics (Levitt 2007; Malkki 1997; Vasques and Marquardt 2003).
Paper short abstract:
The paper will explore the spatial dimension of rituals and celebrations and their role in Slovene diasporic community in Argentina. In the diasporic and transnational contexts, notions of 'roots' (origin), homeland and belonging are symbolically asserted in religious as well as political rituals.
Paper long abstract:
In the paper I will analyse the spatial and symbolic dimensions of rituals, celebrations and festivities and their role in Slovene diasporic community in Argentina. After the Second World War and the communist revolution in Yugoslavia, thousands of Slovenes were killed or exiled and a large part of them migrated to Argentina. In Argentina Slovene migrants and their descendants established a diasporic community with complex formal organisation, churches, schools and associations. The pervasive struggle for preserving and affirming 'roots' and belonging is still going on in the community, even among descendants of migrants, and has even resulted in travels, transnational connections and recent return migrations to Slovenia.
Social memory of traumas, political exile and migration, mythology of origin and homeland, and even aspiration of eventual return are central to numerous religious, public and political rituals, celebrations and festivities. In this paper I will explore how spatio-cultural concepts of 'roots' (origin), homeland and belonging are symbolically asserted in these rituals and how they are redefined in the process of contemporary return migration.
Paper short abstract:
I carried out my research in a "candomblé house" situated in Arborio, in Northen Italy. This paper will explore the ways in which the "sacred space" of the Afro-Brazilian religious system adapted to a new social and geographical environment, confronting the anxiety of a second diaspora.
Paper long abstract:
Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian religious system based on the cult of the orixás, deities whose origins can be traced back to the West-African kingdoms. Candomblé rituals involve sacrifices, spirit possessions and manipulation of sacred energy. The Axè Ilé Alaketú Ayrá is a terreiro (candomblé house) that was founded in Arborio in 2000. It is attended by both Brazilian immigrants who practiced the cult in their country, and Italian novices who decided to "convert" and who were initiated in the religion. On these premises, the sacred space has been reinvented in order to fit into the social expectations and rules of a European settlement.
During the fieldwork, I analysed the ways in which the place adapted itself to a different ecological environment, the difficulties in finding the right ingredients in order to perform the rituals and coping with the atmospheric and architectural changes. Nevertheless, I found the challenge for the terreiro is to fit into a social landscape where "otherness" generates fear and anxiety amongst the people of the surrounding villages, but also amongst the novices' families and friends. I spent part of the research examining how the social actors rebuilt their identities according to their original social and religious backgrounds. The experience of the initiation, the trance and the offerings are perceived differently by Brazilian and Italian practitioners. The sacred space shows its power through the projection of a new transnational identity, that is embodied both in the migrants' reminescences and in the novices' cultural memory.
Paper short abstract:
I will address the religious aspect of Sub-Saharan migration in Tunisia and the ways in which it revivifies Christians Churches. Professionals, students and illegal migrants, mainly from West Africa, are changing the religious landscape through their ritual activities and their social involvements.
Paper long abstract:
Similarly to many big cities of the Arab world which have become migratory crossroads, in Tunis, migrants from sub Saharan Africa adapt their religious practice to their new life, and in a symmetric manner, religious institutions, notably the Christian Church, goes through important changes. In this small country of 10 million inhabitants, black Africans living there are either students, workers, illegal immigrants or highly paid international white collars, working for the African Development Bank, which has moved from Abidjan to Tunis in 2005. Life situations are therefore extremely varied, with men and women arriving from different African countries, with different social backgrounds,religious belongings and life projects.
Among them, a minority is Muslim and gathers in a few of the city mosques. The majority are Christian, divided between Protestants of different denominations and Catholics, francophones or anglophones. Despite these differences, most Christian African migrants are regular church goers and have found their way to the empty, old colonial churches still remaining from the French Protectorate era. In the Tunisian capital just as in other smaller cities, the new migrants have slipped into a pre-existing religious network, and revivified and deeply changed it through new religious rituals and a new social involvement, especially since the war in neighboring Libya and the arrival of many refugees.
In this paper I will describe how this new sub Saharan African religious activity in Tunisia implies transformation of material ritual space as well as a change of perception of black Africans and of Christianity as the religion of the colonial power.
Paper short abstract:
A partir d'une ethnographie des retours en Algérie des femmes harkies, cette contribution trace une cartographie des lieux, des visites et des rituels religieux (ziyâra) afin de relever la co-existence de différentes dimensions : sacrée et profane, divine et familiale, mémorielle et historique.
Paper long abstract:
La relégation est sans doute l'expérience qui décrit le mieux les trajectoires postcoloniales des anciens supplétifs et des membres de leurs familles, connus sous le terme de « harkis », assignés à résidence au lendemain du « rapatriement » en métropole au sein d'espaces conçus ou affectés à leur reclassement. En décalage par rapport au texte public de la rupture, les familles harkies ont cependant continué, malgré le « rapatriement », à entretenir des relations et des liens avec leurs lieux d'origine, esquissant des espaces sociaux fortement marqués par des références plurielles, des allégeances et des imaginaires translocaux. Les retours temporaires en Algérie, dont la morphologie et l'historicité demeurent encore assez largement inconnues, en sont une des expressions les plus riches et les plus intéressantes. A partir d'une ethnographie des retours dans les Béni-Boudouane (Ouarsenis) des femmes, cette contribution souhaite tracer une cartographie des lieux, des visites et des rituels religieux (ziyâra) afin de relever la co-existence et l'emboîtement de différentes dimensions : sacrée et profane, divine et familiale, mémorielle et historique, individuelle et collective. C'est précisément ce nœud de significations interdépendantes, où le religieux rencontre la quête mémorielle, que la ziyâra nous donne à voir. Revenir sur la terre des origines désigne ainsi une sorte de pèlerinage hétéroclite, rendu aux parents et aux saints, dans lequel la mémoire des lieux se charge d'une signification religieuse et les visites religieuses se chargent d'une signification mémorielle et affective et font des femmes les actrices de la circulation et de l'entre-deux.
Paper short abstract:
The paper is based on fieldwork which the author has carried out in two villages populated by descendants of refugees arriving in Greece in the beginning of last century. The paper explores how the religious spaces surrounding their rituals are copies of the original cultic space in Kōsti, Thrace.
Paper long abstract:
The Anastenaria is celebrated by the Anastenarides. They descend from refugees who fled to Greece from the village of Kōsti in eastern Trace, nowadays Bulgaria, after the Balkan Wars, and had settled in several villages in Greek Macedonia by 1924. The Anastenaria is dedicated to the deceased saints, Kōnstantinos and his mother, Elenē, who are depicted on holy icons that the Anastenarides brought with them from Kōsti. The main ritual during the Anastenaria is the ecstatic dance over red-hot coals by the Anastenarides who are possessed by their saint. The festival presents a ritual, which in many ways is in opposition to the official Orthodox religion, and it has been persecuted by the Church. Therefore, it was performed in secret for many years last century. Officially, the uneasy situation between the Church and the Anastenarides has come to an end. But, still the Church states that the festival presents a combination of paganism and Christianity, and does not subscribe to the holistic view of the Anastenarides. The paper is based on fieldwork which I have carried out in two of the villages populated by Anastenarides and other ("indigenous") Greeks during annual festivals. The paper explores how the religious spaces surrounding the rituals carried out by the Anastenarides in the villages are copies of the original cultic space in Kōsti. Furthermore, their cultic apparatuses belong to "former days", thus constituting an ancestor-cult located to their place of origin, since the "Thracians"/"Kōstilidians", celebrates their "Kōstilidian" community and identity through their religious rituals.
Paper short abstract:
Based on an ethnography of Bangladeshi migration in Portugal, carried out since 2003, this paper will reveal the relation between the performance of a sacrificial ritual - the qurbani - and the (re)making of two places of belonging: the desh (the bengali word for Bangladesh) and Portugal.
Paper long abstract:
Based on an ethnography of Bangladeshi migration in Portugal, carried out since 2003, the main objective of this paper is to reveal the relation between ritual and the (re)production of places of belonging in transnational migration contexts. It will be argued that for most of my research associates, the performance of the qurbani (the sacrificial ritual which takes place at the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca - the hajj), in Portugal and in Bangladesh, is a way of producing themselves as successful migrants, not only in relation to their country-fellowmen but also to their relatives and friends. Simultaneously, these ritual transits are part and parcel of the (re)production of two places of belonging: the desh (the bengali word for Bangladesh, home, village, etc), as a place of roots, kinship and piety, and Portugal, as a new home.
Paper short abstract:
The paper deals with the specific features of conquering urban space (physical, social and symbolical) by Dagestani labor migrants in the towns of Western Siberia. It will discuss how space is divided between them and other residents and where the demarcation line of conflict is being drawn.
Paper long abstract:
Oil and gas areas of Western Siberia, especially Khanty-Mansisk region, attract many migrants by quite a great number of well-paid jobs. Among these migrants there is a substantial percentage of immigrants from Dagestan which has increased during last decade. But population of such cities as Surgut is also represented by recent migrants, looking for high "northern" wages, first of whom have arrived there just 40 years ago. As a result - today's migrants come to a town populated with yesterday's ones. Traditional confrontation between old residents and newcomers, common for many Russian cities, is complicated with the fact that the niche of old residents is actually vacant. The role of symbolical master of this territory is assigned to Khants, small Siberian ethnic group, whose percentage in the towns is tiny. This situation enables new migrants to compete for urban space with earlier dwellers on more favorable terms.
The paper deals with the specific features of conquering urban space - physical, social and symbolical - by Dagestani migrants. It is also interesting how the space is being divided between them and other residents, mainly Russians, and where the demarcation line of conflict is being drawn. Domestication of urban space can be realized by the official organizations - Diaspora association "zemliachestvo", municipal administration, and mosque. But sometimes it may happen informally: for example urban space may be symbolically marked through practice of dancing traditional Caucasian dances on Surgut streets by young Dagestani men, even under the threat of being attacked by the police and Russian nationalists.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses uncertain social life of a transnational religious place in postsocilalist Yerevan, the Blue mosque. By identifying different names of the mosque as a space of multiple meanings, I show how it was differently perceived and used in everyday life by locals and newcomers.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I discuss an uncertainty of urban sacred places as intersection of political, material and social relations and identify different names of the Blue mosque in the post-socialist city Yerevan: as a museum's place, as ritual space for Moslem expats and students, as public space for urban leisure. As post-Soviet states adapt to international convention for human rights and tolerance one can observe the intensity, restroration and plurality of multi-religious activity in Yerevan, on one hand, and intolerance and hostility towards religious minorities, on the other hand. I discuss the past and present of the Blue mosque in Yerevan, as a space of multiple meanings and practices and show how this place was differently perceived in guide-books and everyday life by locals and newcomers. The question is whether, along with ethno-national paradigms of social order, new policies and practices of tolerance and interconnections to the city's multi-ethnic past begin to re-diversify the urban landscape in Yerevan. In this way, the paper explores a new form of acquisition of space and a post-socialist modality of transnational realities in connection with a contemporary salience and diversification of religious landscapes around the globe.