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Paper short abstract:

I reflect on the process of doing an ethnography of educational decision-making in a Muslim community in Senegal. I attempt to communicate and theorise the experience of reverting to Islam during fieldwork – and its implications for my study - using decolonial theory, metaphors and visual art.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I reflect on the process of doing an ethnography of educational decision-making in a Muslim community in Senegal, and the challenges of communicating this experience in my forthcoming monograph, given that I reverted to Islam during fieldwork. First I unpack how the Euro-North-American social sciences deny scholars who subscribe to other-than-secular worldviews the possibility to theorise from their perspectives - whether by dismissing their approach as ‘theology’, ‘unscientific’, ‘going native’ etc. I theorise this dynamic using the concepts of ‘coloniality of secularity’ and ‘secular erasure’. Second, I share the challenges of communicating my onto-epistemological transformation - and implications for my relationships with research participants and theorizing about educational decision-making – in a monograph. A metaphor that I have found useful is that proposed by philosopher of education Barbara Thayer-Bacon, who proposes that we make sense of the vast ocean of human experience using nets woven with weft threads (ontologies) and warp threads (epistemologies). I like this metaphor as it is organic – we are constantly (re)-weaving our nets – and encourages epistemic humility, namely an appreciation that much of the world’s mysteries will slip through our inevitably partial nets. I also show how I try to convey some aspects of my Islamic worldview through visual art. Descriptions using words - even when metaphorical rather than literal - attempt to make apparent what are profound, affective, embodied experiences. Art provides a medium where these hidden things stay beneath the surface, challenging the reader through their silence and ambiguity.

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Paper short abstract:

Reflecting on challenges in anthropological work amid religious aversion and suspicion when studying diverse beliefs. Examining insights from fieldwork in evangelical churches in Chile and Spain (2019-present), navigating biases and dualities in understanding religious experiences.

Paper long abstract:

As anthropologists, we consistently encounter challenges from various fronts in our work. Firstly, there is a notable aversion to the religious field among colleagues within our discipline. Secondly, we face suspicion from individuals we engage with in the field when expressing that we are "studying religion," as they do not identify their actions or belief as "religious" Thirdly, there is the complex task of participating in activities with a "religious" nature while setting aside potential biases.

This paper reflects on the insights gained from intermittent fieldwork in evangelical/Pentecostal churches in Chile and Spain from 2019 to the present day. This exercise involves critically considering my positionality, the perspectives of others, and the inherent secularist lens of anthropology which often seeks to impose "religious" concepts or definitions on certain actions that are far from being defined as such by the practitioners.

The article aims to discuss the challenges and obstacles faced as a female anthropologist in these spaces that tend to be predominantly male, where entering the field often requires behaving in a certain way but also demonstrating interest in the faith of those who open the doors of these churches.

Moreover, the anthropologist's epistemic role becomes a potential obstacle, as community members may perceive the researcher as a possible "convert." Consequently, knowledge produced from this epistemic tension results in a duality between objectifying knowledge and the "religious" experiences of the individuals studied. As an anthropologist, my "mission" is to understand the meanings of evangelical/Pentecostal beliefs, while theirs is, to witness my conversion to their Christian beliefs and lifestyle.

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In a Ghanaian agricultural research institute, faith intertwines with scientific inquiry. Prayer mingles with data analysis, challenging Western binaries. Presence and embodied knowledge inform scientific understanding, moving our knowledge production beyond assumptions of secularity and objectivity

Paper long abstract:

Beyond the confines of "secular" and "religious," a Ghanaian agricultural research institution hums with an intricate tension between science and faith. My year-long ethnographic fieldwork unveils a nuanced understanding of knowledge production, one that transcends Western epistemological binaries. This ought to be secular space is subtly interwoven with Christian religiosity. Prayer and scripture seamlessly integrate into research routines, shaping agendas, human relations, and even ethical considerations towards other species. Christian values inform hiring practices, fostering community coherence through shared morals and a "Christ-like" approach to challenges. This entanglement demands reflexive ethnographic approach beyond purely cognitive accounts. Acknowledging the emotional and spiritual investment of researchers, including myself, I move beyond simplistic objectivity and explore affective distance, deconstructing Western assumptions on rationality and objectivity. Presence, as theorized by Engelke, becomes a key concept. Ritualized invocations and chanting cultivate a sense of communion with the divine as researchers draw on intuition and spiritual sensitivity alongside intellectual analysis. Seemingly "purified" scientific settings are permeated by religious influences, manifested in ritualistic practices, moral frameworks, and implicit Christian assumptions shaping various fields of research, including mine. By analyzing these entanglements, I aim to challenge the separation of science and religion often assumed in Western epistemologies. Instead, I propose a relational understanding where both spheres mutually inform and shape each other. While emphasizing the importance of situated knowledge and decolonial epistemologies, this work contributes to a broader critique of Western epistemological biases in Southern science.

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In this presentation, I will discuss researching healing practices and how an anthropologist obtains knowledge through experience and personal involvement in the ritual process. The presentation will be based on my research in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Paper long abstract:

In Central Asia and the South Caucasus, sacred practices are associated with the belief that illness can be caused by evil spirits whose identification is part of the healing process; these include jinns and other spirits. Experts challenge the spirits by using techniques such as reading prayers, amulets, and and performing rituals and pilgrimages. Some people believe that healing techniques deal with invisible forces operating beyond human cognition and are legitimized by Islam; others believe that spiritual methods resemble psychological techniques that release tensions and improve a person's psychological well-being. Others do not believe in the healing by spiritual specialists and call them charlatans.

In this presentation, I will discuss researching healing practices and how an anthropologist obtains knowledge through experience and personal involvement in the ritual process. As a researcher, I often participated in healing to gain insight into the ritual process and learn about different healing techniques and their meaning and form. I will look at the boundaries of the research process for the researcher herself, such as her own body and mind, her knowledge about religion and spiritual experience acquired in the field, and during the process of education and socialization. What are possible interpretations of healing practices while observing them, and whether active participation in the process changes the researcher’s perception of epistemologies regarding Islam? In addition, I will also consider the researcher’s position as someone who negotiates and sometimes even unintentionally legitimizes the "truthfulness/authenticity" of healing when dealing with healers, community members, clients, etc.

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The paper discusses different modes of ethnographic insight into Ignatian mediation. Aspects such as evocative autoethnography, ethnographical research based on the different types of interviews, full participation, elements of netnography and social network analysis are considered.

Paper long abstract:

Ignatian meditation, a concept derived from Exercitia Spiritualia (1548) by Ignatius of Loyola, the co-founder of the Society of Jesus venerated as a saint of the Catholic Church, constitutes the basis of so-called Ignatian retreats. Retreats of this type last between three (short version) and thirty days (four weeks plus introduction). The idea is to contemplate on excerpts from the Bible following the method and formula of meditation, contemplation, and silence originally developed by St.Ignatius. Ignatian retreats are overseen by spiritual supervisors – Jesuit monks or duly authorized laypersons. They take place in many retreat centers around the globe. Some of such facilities also offer various forms of online retreats.

In recent years (for over a decade), numerous new ethnographic papers discussing this particular practice have been published, mostly following the autoethnographic research approach (e.g. Christianson 2012; Lai 2020; Koenig 2020, including evocative autoethnography, cf. Lynn2022).

In this context, I am particularly interested in the epistemological challenges to participation due to e.g. the status of the knowing subject (researcher) and their place within the studied or co-studied community, the theoretical and ideological background, research assumptions and motivations, choice of particular research methods and techniques, and specificity of research problems posed. In my considerations, I focus on the key concept of full participation (Halloy 2016). When discussing Ignatian meditations, I also analyze the role of classical ethnographic studies including participatory observation and various types of interviews, the critical potential of reflective ethnography and netnographic studies with elements of social network analysis.

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Paper short abstract:

Jewish-Caribbean cemeteries cannot be researched in isolation from European colonial history. The lecture reflects on challenges in doing fieldwork in a religious site where multiple histories converge in a multidirectional way and attempts to map out possibilities for a decolonial perspective.

Paper long abstract:

Religious sites cannot be researched in isolation from European colonial history; therefore, the historicity of the site must also be considered. Multiple “histories” can meet in one place in a multidirectional way, as becomes particularly clear in the Jewish-Caribbean cemeteries, as these have not remained untouched by their (religious-cultural) environment over the years. Based on ethnographic research in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, I will illustrate the challenges of funerary knowledge production. First, the accessibility of Jewish cemeteries can influence ethnographic research. They are often located outside or on the outskirts of cities and are therefore more difficult to reach, or they are (hidden) in Christian cemeteries enclosed by walls, as it was long difficult for Jews to obtain their own burial grounds. Access is by appointment only and it can be difficult to find persons who have the key to the cemeteries. Second, epistemological challenges can arise. As a researcher from the Global North, research in the Global South can be understood as a continuation of colonial practices that reproduce unequal power relations. Western research is deeply entangled in colonial power structures and forms of foreign domination. Through participatory research and collaboration with local researchers and scholars of Jewish Studies, I try to counteract the potential danger of white knowledge production and to give special consideration to perspectives and “theories from the South”. In my presentation, I will reflect on the possibilities of a decolonial perspective to contribute to the deconstruction of historically grown power and knowledge complexes.

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In the Sierra of Puebla, Mexico, local Indigenous Maseual dances comprise an epistemology that fuses and relates humans with landscape beings, places, and events. For Maseual dancers such acts are a necessary technology to become and thus intervene in the form of a mountain spirit upon the world.

Paper long abstract:

In the mountainous Sierra of Puebla, Mexico, Indigenous Maseual rural villages have historically survived and thrived by observing and assessing landscape relations paired to spiritual maladies and life cycle’s events. Local multifaceted masked dances portray such complex relations comprising a form of knowledge that constantly fuses and relates humans with landscape beings, places, and events. To this day, this sophisticated both ecological and performative epistemology has been stereotyped as “traditional” and misconstrued as merely folkloric, ultimately to be subsumed under Catholic religion by dominant Mexican society and even anthropology. This presentation, based on my long-term fieldwork and participation in local dance groups, tells a different story. Maseual dancers consider that such an act is necessary to see, become, and, crucially, intervene in the form of a mountain spirit upon the world bringing favourable conditions and brokering in between human and non-human collectives. Such dancing entities are called tipekayomej (pl.) or “mountain bodies”. By decentering humanity, these assembled beings can “make real” an enduring form of ecological thinking and ecopolitical action.

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Paper short abstract:

Reflexiona sobre las complejidades de interpelar las formas de producción del conocimiento desde la adecuación de los modelos de registro y desde la inmersión etnográfica plena en la praxis religiosa del Complejo Ocha-Ifá, a partir del referencial de la etnopsicología y la ontología etnográfica.

Paper long abstract:

Inmersión etnográfica desde una práctica religiosa de ascendencia africana.

Los referentes teóricos - metodológicos de la etnopsicología resultan de gran utilidad para la investigación científica en el campo de la religión. En el contexto cubano en particular, el estudio de las religiones de matriz africana desde esta perspectiva, implica una provocación constante a los recursos metodológicos prestablecidos desde la tradición antropológica en los cuales, se develan notorias fricciones en la formulación de epistemologías que contemplen las prácticas culturales relegadas a la subalternidad y promuevan sociedades del conocimiento más justas e inclusivas. La propuesta invita a reflexionar sobre las complejidades que supone interpelar las formas de producción del conocimiento desde la adecuación de los modelos de registro, análisis e interpretación y la participación plena en el campo religioso, a partir del referencial de la etnopsicología y la ontología etnográfica. A su vez, expone cómo la experiencia vital durante la investigación, preexiste como forma de aproximación a las condiciones de producción y reconstrucción del conocimiento en tanto experimentación empírica, teórica y metodológica, lo cual constituye una contribución al debate contemporáneo del quehacer etnográfico en el ámbito de la religión.

Palabras clave: Religión, etnopsicología, ontología etnográfica.