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- Convenors:
-
Thomas Witzeling
(University of Lausanne)
Sara Le Menestrel (CNRS)
Nicolas Boissière (Université du Québec à Montréal)
Marie Mazzella di Bosco (Paris Nanterre University - LESC)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Main Site Tower (MST), 01/004
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The focus given on the circulation of contemporary 'spiritual' practices, their interconnections through transnational movements, and the different ways in which they relate to and/or engage with the networks in which they are situated, aims to highlight the transversal dynamics at stake.
Long Abstract:
Situated at the crossroads of therapy, science and politics, the field of "contemporary spiritualities" challenges analytical frameworks as demonstrated by the debates around its designation itself (New Age, Self Religion, Western Esotericism, etc.) and the eclectic practices it covers, from neo-paganism to eco-spirituality, from neo-traditional movements to alternative medicine. Beyond these wide-range practices, contemporary spiritual practices share commonalities through an emphasis on individual and collective transformation, holistic therapy, cosmic energy, the body, and the sacredness of nature.
This panel will be focused on the circulation of contemporary spiritual practices and on their interconnections through transnational movements. It will emphasize ethnographic studies and historical perspectives essential to the understanding of the global deployment of spiritual practices. We will give particular attention to the context of their emergence, and the different ways in which they relate to and/or engage with the networks - spiritual, therapeutic, medical, environmental, political, etc. - in which they are situated in an effort to highlight the transversal dynamics at stake.
We welcome proposals based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and/or historical studies which will focus on the identification of distinctive mechanisms of circulation through the study of circuits of practices. Key places such as festivals, conferences, workshops, training programs, websites, among other forms, will highlight the complementary uses of those practices, their continuities and the porosity of their networks.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -Emily Pierini (Sapienza University of Rome)
Paper short abstract:
This paper addresses ‘trance-formative experiences’ in the Vale do Amanhecer – namely, how mediumistic trance is learned for therapeutic purposes fostering a transformation – comparing experiences across the Atlantic between Brazil and Europe, and also across the spiritual and biomedical domains
Paper long abstract:
This paper addresses ‘trance-formative experiences’, namely, how mediumistic trance is learned for therapeutic purposes fostering a transformation. It calls for an attention to the process of learning spirit mediumship, comparing experiences across the Atlantic between Brazil and Europe, and also across the spiritual and biomedical domains. It refers in particular to the transnational spread of the Brazilian Christian Spiritualism of the Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn) and the development of what mediums describe as ‘mediumistic trance’. The experiences of those who undergo mediumistic training show how besides spreading in Europe through transnational religions these practices are also to be understood as embedded in a growing network of therapeutic practices. This demands to overcome some conceptualizations of spirit mediumship and possession as being individual psychic phenomena or marginal practices belonging to some distant otherness. Instead, this paper proposes to tackle them along with contemporary therapeutic practices operating besides the biomedical field, and so in relation to both spiritual and therapeutic networks.
Carine Plancke (Ghent University)
Paper short abstract:
Womb yoga is a women’s wellbeing practice developed in the UK over the last two decades. This ethnographic paper examines the intersections of national and transnational networks in the emergence of womb yoga and describes its transnational spread through workshops and a global Facebook group.
Paper long abstract:
Womb yoga is a women’s wellbeing practice that was developed in the UK over the last two decades by the feminist yoga teacher and therapist Uma Dinsmore-Tuli. It builds on yoga as transmitted in transnational lineage-based schools, notably Iyengar and Satyananda yoga, but adapts and expands these practices to suit women’s bodies and experiences. As such, it continues the pioneering work of some female yoga teachers who grew up in the UK, in particular the yoga approach for pregnancy, birth and mothering developed by Françoise Freedman and the free style, fluid yoga taught by Angela Farmer. It substantially expands this work by integrating the philosophy and mythology of śakta tantra in reference to scholarly texts of Indologists and by reinterpreting and reimagining tantric traditions in line with Anglo-American goddess spirituality.
This paper first examines the intersections of national and transnational networks in the emergence and development of womb yoga. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it further describes the transnational spread of the practice through workshops taught mostly in Europe and through a global Facebook group created in the aftermath of #Me Too and aimed at eradicating the abuse of women in yoga. As such, this paper contributes to document the proliferation of new forms of yoga in the contemporary spiritual field. It explores the transnational dynamics that sustain these new developments and highlights how their centre of gravity is situated in English-speaking countries, English being the main language for teaching and dissemination.
Emma Gobin (Université Paris 8)
Paper short abstract:
Based on ethnographical and historical data, the paper documents the arrival and development of permaculture in Cuba, a practice imported at the crossroads of several transnational networks and which favors local ritualized practices and a spiritualization of the relationship with « Nature », including in urban environments.
Paper long abstract:
After the fall of the USSR, Cuba experienced a strong crisis that led the country to experiment new methods and techniques in a wide variety of sectors, such as that of health, thus favouring the introduction of « New Age » spiritual techniques and visions (Karnoouh, 2011 ; Gobin, 2016). The changes that affected the field of agriculture and environment, in particular the importation and development of permaculture, agroecology and urban agriculture, also acted as channels of new spiritual conceptions involving « Nature » and forms of what I call « ecoritualization ». Documenting the arrival and development of such practices in Cuba thus amounts to document part of the rise of contemporary spiritualities in the country, especially in the case of permaculture –which is per se a transnational movement (e.g. Centemeri, 2019) and has directly to do with contemporary spiritualities (Foyer, 2022). Based on oral testimonies and ethnographical fieldwork, this paper proposes to map the events, international networks and circuits that allowed the introduction since the 1990s of agroecological techniques in Cuba, in particular that of permaculture. By so doing, it pretends to highlight the religious or spiritual connections of such process as well as to emphasize how, on the basis of foundational collaborations with facilitators coming from Australia, Mexico or Colombia, and with the mediation of a Cuban ONG, several workshops and trainings (locally called talleres de permacultura criolla) worked as key events in the dissemination of the practice and the progressive spiritualization of the relationships with Nature for some « followers » (including in urban environments).