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Accepted Paper:
Malgorzata Rygielska (University of Silesia in Katowice)
Paper short abstract:
The paper presents the ways in which Jesuits and the lay faithful construct and co-create the religious third space. A particular emphasis is placed on the description, analysis, and interpretation of the activity of "mobile" communities (One Ignatian Community, Poglebiarka.pl).
Paper long abstract:
Jesuits have long taken advantage of the cyberspace as a viable platform for the purposes of not only evangelization but also promotion and facilitation of specific religious practices. Consciously and deliberately, they employ "strategic management of religious websites" (cf. Golan &Campbell 2015) to activate the faithful and encourage their participation. The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated the shift in religious practices towards the online realm, modified the existing and facilitated the emergence and promotion of new forms of religious activity. In the case of the Jesuit circles, the intensification of activity conducted via digital media was also related to the celebrations of the Ignatian year (2021-2022).The coincidence of the two factors bore fruit in the form of e.g. the One Ignatian Community - the "Bilingual Prayer Service", as well as the substantial popularization of virtual retreats. Such initiatives bring together a variety of complementary formats: written, audio and audiovisual, including interactive formats. The Online Retreats are created in the form of recordings and visual inspirations with commentaries. At the same time, apart from "global" programs there are also strictly local initiatives (cf. the Polish Pogłębiarka - a mobile community practicing Ignatian meditation https://poglebiarka.pl/ ). The Netnographic Analysis (cf. e.g. Kozinets 2019, Kozinets, Gambetti 2021) allows one to consider many questions regarding/related to the ways of constructing and mediating the third religious space (by Jesuits and lay users as well as co-founders of Ignatian communities operating both online and offline), online religious identity building, and emergent roles of online authority.
Participating in the Sacred: Deities, Domains and Digital Communities II
Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -