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- Convenors:
-
Anna Fedele
(CRIA, University Institute of Lisbon)
Lena Gemzöe (Stockholm University)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Simon Coleman
(University of Toronto)
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- Horsal 4 (B4)
- Sessions:
- Friday 17 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Stockholm
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the intersections of gender, religion and travel and we particularly welcome papers focusing on men's practices from a gender perspective or ethnographies of LGBTQI persons' involvement in religious travelling.
Long Abstract:
This panel calls for ethnographically grounded papers that explore the intersections of gender, religion and travel, all three concepts used in a broad sense. We consider the notion of "travel" as encompassing actual journeys related to religion as well as the many ways in which religion is related to movement, as practice and metaphor. We welcome papers that explore this field from the vantage points of gender and sexuality; in particular we encourage work that presents gender informed analyses of men's practices or ethnographies of LGBTQI persons' involvement in religious travelling. These are the topics we would like to address:
How do religion and gender shape migratory processes, for instance with respect to motives, opportunities and means to migrate, or in processes of inclusion/exclusion in receiving communities? What happens when religions travel with migrants to new places in terms of gender in migrant and receiving communities? Can conversion be seen as a form of travelling religion? How do religious tourism or pilgrimage forge and reshape gender/sexual identities, norms and practices, and how are experiences and imaginaries of religious journeys shaped by gender? What are the gendered meanings implied in travelling icons, sacred objects or holy bodies? What gendered modes of movement can be found at the micro-level of practice, e.g in walking pilgrimages, processions, daily religious routines? How can migration or pilgrimage allow gendered religious forms of expression, otherwise restrained? How are (gendered) ritual transformations of self related to travelling religion?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 17 August, 2018, -Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the religious and gender dimensions of migration through the narratives of Pentecostal pastors who migrated from Sub-Sahara Africa to the Netherlands. How do religion and gender shape migratory processes? How is migration religionized? How is religious migration gendered?
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the religious and gender dimensions of migration through the narratives of Pentecostal pastors who migrated from Sub-Sahara Africa to the Netherlands. It considers migration as part of a Pentecostal pastor's habitus, that is not (necessarily) a once-in-a-lifetime disruptive event but part of a pastor's trajectory on the broader transnational field of Pentecostalism. It furthermore explores how gender plays a role in shaping and narrating the meanings of both religious travel as well as the acts of creating Pentecostal missionary spaces in the Netherlands. It finally offers an intersectional perspective on how male and female pastors embody holiness as Christian role-models in African migrant communities in Europe. How do class, education and the kind of mobility that underlies migration shape the trajectories and positions of pastors? How is ' becoming a pastor' part of an individuals' career? How does this shape the mission activities and spaces that are created? The paper speaks to broader questions such as how do religion and gender shape migratory processes? How is migration religionized? How is religious migration gendered?
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on ethnographic data about male Portuguese pilgrims walking to Fátima, this paper reflects upon possible changes in the 'gendered division of religious labor' among Catholic pilgrims, comparing current findings with those of previous studies focusing on pilgrimage and gender
Paper long abstract:
Based on fieldwork at the Marian shrine of Fátima in Portugal, this paper explores the experiences of Portuguese pilgrims walking from their hometown to Fátima, to attend the massive celebrations of the apparitions on the 13th of May and the 13th of October. Drawing on ethnographic data and especially on the life stories of the pilgrims, I will analyze the experiences of men walking in organized groups. Referring to previous research about pilgrimage and gender I will argue that these pilgrims confirm but often also challenge the traditional gender roles they received from their parents that are influenced by Catholic ideas about what it means to be a good woman and mother or a good man and father. Since women tend to predominate at Christian but also at other pilgrimage shrines, so far men have often been seen by scholars as somewhat marginal figures and little attention has been paid to their experiences. This paper represents an effort to start filling this gap and to assess how pilgrimage can reshape men's gender identities, norms and practices at a historical moment when the Vatican is experiencing a growing pressure to allow women to become priests. In Fatima the 'gendered division of religious labor' is slowly changing because girls and women acting as acolytes or serving at the mass during the Holy Communion are increasingly visible during important ceremonies and in this context men's attitudes and roles are also shifting.
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is to explore the significance of masculinized modes of movement among Swedish pilgrims on the way to Santiago de Compostela. How can this proces of masculinization be analysed in order to contribute to an understanding of the popularity of walking pilgrimages?
Paper long abstract:
The aim of this paper is to explore the significance of masculinized modes of movement among Swedish pilgrims on the way to Santiago de Compostela. I start out by pointing to the fact that the Camino pilgrimage evolved as a predominantly male phenomenon that continues to attract men to a relatively large degree, compared to other religio-spiritual practices. Women predominate, however, among Swedish Camino pilgrims. In a discussion of three ethnographic examples, I argue that a process of masculinization of the pilgrims' bodies is manifested in various ways; walking is associated with "the hardening of men" including endurance of pain and keeping one's word, male and female pilgrims evoke metaphors of pilgrims as warriors, and a recent trend that combines fasting and walking involves a masculinization of the female pilgrim's body. How are these complex, gendered processes of meaning-making related? How can they be analysed in order to contribute to an understanding of the growth and popularity of the Camino pilgrimage (and other walking pilgrimages)?
Paper short abstract:
My paper focuses on the missionary trips of Russian Baptists. These trips are a predominantly male enterprise, and women only participate with auxiliary roles. I will demonstrate how this regulation originates in the complementarian theology and how these trips construct masculinity and brotherhood.
Paper long abstract:
My paper is an analysis of the missionary trips of various kinds, length, and function by the Russian Baptist ministers. Generally aimed towards proclaiming the Gospel, these trips may be guest visits to distant congregations, evangelizing of the indigenous population, street preaching campaigns, and promotion of the rehabilitation ministries. These trips are conducted predominantly by men due to the dogmatic conviction that preaching and evangelizing is a male prerogative (the common reference is 1 Timothy 2:12). Women rarely take part, and when they do they perform auxiliary or female-assigned (in a patriarchal household) functions or are focused on working with women and children.
Consequently, groups of males sharing the sense of Christian brotherhood and the same dogmatic convictions construct a specific manifestation of masculinity. I will disclose this manifestation through the prism of complementarian theology and provide comparative analysis of the "false" worldly and "true" Christian masculinities experienced by the same converted men at different times in their lives.
Complementarian theology is a mainstream Evangelical approach to gender and family issues. Contrapositioned to the two extremes, commonly labeled as "egalitarian" and "patriarchal," complementarianism is defined as a belief that men and women are equal in value and different in role, and the leadership of men in church and family is established by God. I will demonstrate how missionary activities of the Russian Baptist men serve as a fulfillment of their masculine role to serve God by serving people.
Paper short abstract:
This paper deals with sacred sites in Central Java where sexual intercourse is one of the ritual acts performed by pilgrims of both sexes. The focus is on gender relations that are symbolically expressed in acts of ritualized sex ("ritual seks") at pilgrimage sites.
Paper long abstract:
In Central Java, there are a number of pilgrimage sites that are visited by pilgrims of both sexes either to communicate with each other sexually or - as far as men are concerned - to have sexual contacts with prostitutes. The pilgrims are confident in both cases that the sexual act consummated on site can help them redeem the actual goals of their pilgrimage, namely health, wealth and happiness. Central to the legitimation of "ritual seks" are local legends that tell of exceptional love couples in the historical past. Pilgrims try to reenact the behavior of these sacralized lovers mimetically in order to accommodate some of the spiritual power they embody. The development of "ritual seks" into a mass phenomenon that has only emerged over the last twenty to thirty years is in clear contradiction to the frequently diagnosed Islamization of Indonesian society, including its sexual norms and moral values. This paper aims at examining these rituals not only in terms of the religious dynamics to which they paradigmatically refer but also in regard to gender relations which are performatively enacted with "ritual seks" at pilgrimage sites.
Paper short abstract:
This paper maps and explores processes of resistance, unbelief and magical thinking amongst male Christian-Orthodox youth in Cyprus.
Paper long abstract:
Ever since Cyprus became a republic in 1960, the Cypriot-Orthodox Church has maintained an active role in the political life of the island. In the last few years, the current Archbishop’s often-controversial decisions have, over time, provoked a general stance of resistance and discontent amongst members of the Christian-Orthodox population, and especially the youth. Through life narratives and interviews of my (mostly) male informants, and ethnographic observation of the manner by which religion and politics become entangled in Cyprus, I attempt to explore the formation of emerging male subjectivities taking place at the intersection of religious resistance, unbelief and magical thinking. By putting emerging literature on religious unbelief and atheism in conversation with anthropological literature on magic, I explore how my informants’ denunciation of religious authority in Cyprus leads to the emergence of what, in the context of this paper, I call a meta-pragmatic subject: in other words, a subject which does not simply adhere or resist religious knowledge and beliefs, but is rather in an active process of surveying and evaluating processes of religiosity in order to formulate its own worldviews. As I suggest, resistance and unbelief do not lead to disenchantment and rationalisation. Rather, such active pursuit of self-reflection results to personal perspectives and philosophies which contain elements which can be understood as magical.