- Convenors:
-
Denise Lombardi
(GSRL-UMR 8582 CNRS EPHE - PSL)
Eleonora Di Renzo (Sapienza University of Rome)
Manéli Farahmand (University of Fribourg)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Network:
- Network Panel
Short Abstract
The CSP Network (EASA) panel proposes rethinking the interaction between contemporary spiritualities and new social movements from an anthropological perspective. From personal reform to structural change, we will discuss how these spiritualities fuel forms of collective mobilization.
Long Abstract
The events of 1968 significantly reshaped social movements and religious identities, marking a turning point in protests against state control and authoritarianism, while fostering emancipation and transformation. Rooted in alternative lifestyles and values that rejected postwar consumerism, these movements provided fertile ground for “new social movements” (Touraine 1978; Neveu 2010). Although the notion of “social movement” has been widely debated (Filleule 2009), it is generally understood as a collective process through which individuals and groups mobilize around shared interests to challenge or transform social and cultural structures (Neveu 2010).
Movements ranging from anti-globalization to Occupy and the Arab Spring revived the “critical spirit” of May 1968 through new politics of space and participation (Pawling 2013). For instance, the Occupy movement transformed indignation into participatory solidarity and proposed “a different way of living” beyond consumerism (Chomsky 2013).
Since the 1970s and 1980s, intersections between social movements and contemporary spiritualities have emerged, including eco-paganism, New Age peace activism, holistic practices linked to Indigenous cosmologies, and spiritual expressions within racial justice, neo-rural, and queer movements. Such interactions have been overlooked in anthropological and ethnographic approaches.
The CSP Network (EASA) panel addresses these politico-spiritual mobilizations in which contemporary spiritualities fuel new social movements and grassroots initiatives. These mobilizations unfold through bodily participation, protest, and activism, engaging both individual and collective processes that activate solidarity practices and emotional pathways. We welcome epistemological, empirical, and methodological papers that explore the interactions between contemporary spiritualities and collective mobilization from a bottom-up anthropological perspective.