Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the histories, memories and projected futures of interreligious encounters attached to emblematic multireligious buildings and the subsequent framing processes of political representation, deliberation in civil society and tourist consumption.

Paper long abstract:

Based on an ongoing research project, this paper investigates the histories, memories and projected futures of interreligious encounters attached to emblematic multireligious buildings and the subsequent framing processes of political representation, deliberation in civil society and tourist consumption. More specifically, the paper examines how notions of religious diversity, interfaith and inter-religious dialogues are materially represented, shaped and contested concretely in the building of multi-faith buildings and multi-faith rooms. By analysing the process of configuration of "socially approved knowledge" (Schütz) on the interreligious realm we reflect on how representations of commonality across religious difference are expressed and how religious heritage is re-interpreted in the light of current religious pluralism and appropriated by the actors involved

Paper short abstract:

The EU institutional crisis requires a change of perspective. The concept of 'spiritus conexionis' connects diversity within a supranational identity. The paper shows how European integration process and Cusanus' figure of spirit of union can emphasize dialogue in Europe.

Paper long abstract:

Nicholas of Cusa's (1401-1464) spiritus conexionis connects diversity of specific cultures and religions within an interacting superior system. This dynamic connecting figure is an ongoing process comparable with a pilgrimage way. The infinite connections interwoven along history have created common interreligious sites. The European perception of "Unity in diversity" and interreligious symbols are tools to create meaningful social relations and social cohesion.

We are living in a historic period, in which the modern nation state to integrate diversity is no longer tenable and a new supranational system like the EU is at the risk to fail. This paper explores how European integration has managed to connect the different parts of Europe with the whole over the last few decades.

The paper is exploring if interreligious dialogue supports unity in diversity as tool that creates further harmonization and enhances legitimacy for further European integration. Does this connection among minds, cultures and religious assets have the potential to empower a common European society?

Cusanus' spirit of union unites and harmonizes the individual in a dynamic process of unification. This union does not mean a process of commingling. For Cusanus it means that the diversity of religious rites and cultures must be retained and peace founded in faith.

Paper short abstract:

Ethnographic study of British interfaith dialogue practices documents interfaith communication as a source of anxiety. Religious “diversity talk” creates new kinds of global linguistic value, whereby becoming an expert in talking across difference is considered a skill to be shared, not hoarded.

Paper long abstract:

Based on linguistic anthropological research conducted among British interfaith dialogue advocates since 2011, this talk analyzes the changing value of "diversity talk" in the UK, highlighting new understandings of global religion as a source of communication anxiety. The rise of diversity talk has been observed among US university administrators (Urciuoli, 2010), agents of neighborhood gentrification (Modan, 2008) and EU supra-state agents (Gal, 2011; Moore, 2011). Similarly, studies of language and diversity (or super-diversity) (Vertovec, 2007; Blommaert and Rampton, 2011) increasingly attend to questions of scale (Blommaert, 2007; Coupland, 2011; Fairclough, 2006), emphasizing a capitalist logic that seems to drive the "upscaling" of diversity talk (Park, 2013). When considering the linguistic management of religious diversity, however, one might also account for what I call, following Hannerz (1989), the global ecumenical scale (that is, all the inhabited earth). Paradoxically, British interfaith dialogue advocates promote Taylorist linguistic prescriptions for religious diversity management across the globe, yet flout the social stratification inherent in managerial logic. My findings reveal how the widespread promotion of interfaith dialogue practices allow us to track a shift in how people living in European urban centers reconfigure their place in the city and, perhaps more tellingly, their cities' place in the world. The shifting understanding of the increasing scales (geographic and interpersonal) across which one must communicate leads interfaith dialogue advocates to remap social (and linguistic) obligations to family, community, city, state, the world and - for some subjects - God.

Paper short abstract:

Contemporary marian devotion and marian pilgrimages seem to be alien to the current ecological imprint. Considering the recent "greening" of the Catholic Church as a new institutional trend, could we expect to observe new kinds of Virgins appearing and promoting ecological values?

Paper long abstract:

European pilgrimages such as those to Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje, are places where former Church social doctrines may be reenacted through the devotional figure of the Virgin Mary and the messages she is said to have delivered. On the one hand, in some of these places, the religious communities or the institution in charge of the site still tend to promote antimodernist, antiliberal and/or anticommunist contents. On the other hand, in more mainstream pilgrimages like Lourdes or Fatima, new elaborations in terms of a spirituality of the self and well-being can be observed. However, what seems to be absent in contemporary marian devotions and pilgrimages is an ecological imprint. One explanation could be that another less apologetical and more "up-to-date" devotional figure, Francis of Assisi patron of ecologists, has already come to personalize the new "green" values inside and outside the Church. It has also come to symbolize unity in diversity as the interreligious encounters held in Assisi exemplify it. Starting from data collected through ethnographic fieldworks in Lourdes, Medjugorje and in several marian devotion movements in Switzerland (2009-2015), we shall first define some of the devotional modalities observed in marian devotions. Then recent observations made out of an ongoing research project on the involvement of churches on ecological issues in Switzerland (2015-2016) shall be used to define the "green" trend in Catholic Church. In conclusion, we shall theoretically discuss the probability of a merging between contemporary marian devotion modalities and ecological investments observed in the Catholic Church.

Paper short abstract:

Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land may serve not only as a confirmation of faith, but as the setting for a Judeo-Christian inter-religious and intercultural encounter between guides and pilgrims. The shared sites provide the security that enables mutual questioning of taken-for-granted assumptions.

Paper long abstract:

Pilgrim itineraries often promote the Holy Land voyages so that pilgrims may "see Jesus", make the Bible more real and strengthen their Christian faith. I suggest, however, that Christian pilgrimage may also be seen as an inter-religious and intercultural encounter. The environmental bubble of the guided group pilgrimage encloses not only the Christian pilgrim and his pastor, but also the Jewish-Israeli guide, and the Palestinian (Muslim or Christian) driver. Christian pilgrims' initial religious and political views may be confirmed through the guide's presentation of Christian Holy sites, the Bible, current politics and his own life story. Jewish-Israeli guides, on the other hand, struggle with the seductions of Christianity and their own Jewish commitments in the course of shepherding pilgrims through the Land.

Based on three decades of experience guiding Christian groups and interviews with guides, pastors and pilgrims, I demonstrate how Christian pilgrims and Jewish guides negotiate their expectations and commitments through performance in the charged landscape of the Holy Land and at shared Jewish/Christian places of worship, such as Mount Zion and the Western and Southern Walls of the Temple Mount.

While the convergence of Christian pilgrims and Jewish guides over the significance of the land and its sites creates avenues for shared discourse, the developing conversation often questions the taken-for-granted nature of Christian/Jewish understandings of the land and the Bible. By citing several examples of this interaction in differing power/authority situations, I hope to offer new perspectives on pilgrimage, interfaith dialogue and the performativity of the Bible.

Paper short abstract:

This contribution accounts for the dynamics of saint veneration at pilgrimage sites shared among Orthodox Christians, Alawites, and Sunni Muslims in Hatay. The objective is to propose random fractal dynamics as a model for analyzing the unity and diversity of in the practice of saint veneration.

Paper long abstract:

Visit at shared pilgrimage sites is a phenomenon that still exists in rural areas of Hatay, Turkey. The aim of this contribution is to account for the local and global dynamics of the veneration of saints at these sites and to propose a theoretical model that can explain this dynamics. Focusing on Orthodox Christians, Alawites, and Sunni Muslims in the Southern-most part of Turkey, attention will be given on how interreligious relations are shaped by rituals of saint veneration. To map inter-rituality as related to shared pilgrimage sites, the aim is to analyze the ethnographic material within a theoretical framework of cybernetics that would allow more specifically to explore the fractal dynamics of interreligious encounters. It will be shown that, depending on the context and situation, devotees adjust and legitimize their ritual acts. The objective is to provide evidence for the multiple agendas involved in the visits to shared pilgrimage sites and the ways in which the actual worship is negotiated. This diversification of religious practice through random fractal dynamics will allow to question unified notions of religion and possibly to deconstruct the very notion of religion as being based on specific theologies and doctrines. This paper shows what happens at the margins of tradition in lived religions inquiring into how devotees develop their own theologies of individual religiosity in justifying their actual practice of saint veneration.

Paper short abstract:

In present day Portugal Afro-Brazilian religions co-exist with New Age practices, shamanism and Catholicism, not always in a peaceful way. This paper discusses the adaptations and conflicts involved, and the existence (or the non-existence) of interreligious dialogue within Portuguese civil society.

Paper long abstract:

Afro-Brazilian religions have been exported to Portugal in the last twenty years and have become quite popular among the Portuguese. Umbanda is more expanded than Candomblé, since individuals think that they adept more easily to Umbanda , conceptualized as closer to the Portuguese Catholic religious matrix (Frijerio 2004). This allows followers to keep their catholic practices (such as attending mass on Sunday), which is something also widely accepted by the Afro-Brazilian religious leaders. At the same time, several of these leaders in the Lisbon area are also tarot card readers, reiki masters, feng-shui instructors, practice aromatherapy, etc.. Several of them add shamanism and Celtic practices (such as the Celtic feast of Samhain) to this. But the possibility and effectiveness of this religious potential dialogue also carries drawbacks. The area around the Sintra hills and Cabo da Roca (the westmost point of Europe) is considered by all these new religious tendencies as a magical zone, full of special energies and powers. Offers made to the diverse spiritual entities are often placed at the entrances of the Sintra natural park, causing disturbances, shocking the more conservative Catholics and triggering complaints to the national guard in charge of such ecological sanctuaries. Based on field work carried out in Portugal, this paper will discuss the transnational character of the importation of these religions, the adaptations and conflicts involved, and the existence (or the non-existence) of interreligious dialogue within Portuguese civil society.

Paper short abstract:

Ceuta’s ideology of convivencia describes its Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish communities as all viably Spanish. I describe how convivencia is constituted through an elaborate government-sponsored economy of sharing and merging religious rituals that commit participants to mutual trust.

Paper long abstract:

Public media often depicts the Spanish enclave of Ceuta as a 'watch-dog' of Europe. Less attention has been devoted to the Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus that call Ceuta home. Ceuta's inhabitants are using the notion of convivencia to manage the enclave's mounting ethno-religious tensions by challenging the idea that only Christian-Castilians are truly Spaniards. Convivencia rather presents Ceuta, to outsiders and itself, as a 'melting pot' whose ethno-religious 'culturas' are all validly Spanish. This paper analyses how this re-imagining of Ceuta's demography is achieved through a system of ritual backed by a profitable economy of sponsorship. Ceuta's government encourages the culturas to form comunidades: property-owning institutions with formal membership. Comunidades receive funding if they invite the Ceutan public to take part in their religious rituals (e.g. Diwali, Semana Santa), maintain each others' shrines or merge different rites together. Ceuta's calendar is thus dotted with fantastic festivals that celebrate the religious compatibility of its culturas and commit participants to further foster inter-cultura 'understanding' and 'trust'. These rituals of/for convivencia discursively transform potentially divisive rituals into the rich, playful, diverse, heritage that belongs to - and constitutes - all Ceutans. Ceutans routinely question whether belief in other cosmologies is required for convivencia and worry how its many internal contradictions often collapse into political crisis. However, they also insist convivencia remains the only real model that averts the dangers of mono-cultural Spanishness while securing steady funding from Madrid's government, convinced that globalizing Spain can only profit from Ceuta's experiments with multiculturalism.

Paper short abstract:

This paper on Western esoteric practices in France explores how a group of individuals with different religious beliefs understand Carnac as a sacred landscape. Attention will be paid to the rituals they execute to unleash the healing energy, both telluric and cosmic, located under local megaliths.

Paper long abstract:

In recent decades, the multicultural, multiracial and multireligious dimensions of contemporary France have been the background for the awakening of different spiritual practices, some of them notably related to the New Age wave originating in the United States in the 60s. Among these practices, the one related to the energy healings surrounding French megaliths has drawn our attention. In order to explore this religious phenomenon, we have commenced doctoral research on the subject.

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork among the members of a multireligious group founded in 2008, who hold monthly meetings in Carnac in order to apply the spiritual knowledge of the ancient civilisation that built the local megalithic landscape. Through the analysis of their eclectic energy rituals, I will show that people of different spiritual traditions use archaeological sites as 'power places' in order to develop their spiritual welfare.

Brittany, the region where Carnac is settled, has a strong Celtic heritage and maintains a fierce local identity. For centuries, the population of this rural territory has reproduced oral traditions portraying the megaliths as healing stones capable of curing various diseases such as infertility, fever, meningitis and deafness. Through our research we have stated that these local beliefs have been entangled with James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, leading to the perception of Carnac as a 'naturally sacred landscape' that contains underground telluric energies. In Carnac, traditional and modern spiritual practices come together in the form of ritual interactions with the archaeological landscape.