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- Convenors:
-
Anna Niedźwiedź
(Jagiellonian University)
Thorsten Wettich (University of Bremen)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Religion
- Sessions:
- Thursday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The panel aims to discuss how human bodies are used and constructed in religious contexts and how these processes are connected with establishing, confirming but also transgressing, questioning, changing various taxonomies, hierarchies or rules. Ethnographic as well as theoretical papers are welcome
Long Abstract:
Anthropological theorizations of religion have long been shaped by Western dualistic approaches to spiritual and material, divine and sensual, mind and body. But numerous researchers have also been transgressing these divisions. Many ethnographic studies have been focusing on the body (or bodies) revealing its significance in the context of religious practices and imageries. Bodily classifications and elaborated rules related to corporal purity, taboos concerning certain bodies or their parts, the formation of bodily aesthetics and the variety of bodily techniques are now well established topics. Current approaches focus on the role of embodiment, the construction of religious realities in and through bodies, as well as questions about individual and collective agencies and identities. Bodies, used and constructed in religious contexts, refer to exact taxonomies, hierarchies and rules. They not only mirror social rules and social order but can also be used as tools challenging, transgressing and reformulating those rules.
This panel seeks to discuss these complex entanglements of human bodies via analysis of various corporeal rules created in religious contexts. These rules can refer to political and ethnic hierarchies, gender and generational divisions, class and economic orders. When discussing bodily rules, we propose to observe the dynamics between religious and non-religious entities, different religious groups or various formations within the same religious tradition, institutionalized and bottom-up approaches. We also encourage studies on the temporality of bodily rules applied in religious traditions, especially their changeability and creativity during the extraordinary time of the recent global pandemic or other crises.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 June, 2021, -Monika Hirmer (SOAS, University of London)
Paper short abstract:
Through bodily rituals aimed at identifying with goddess Tripurasundarī, female and male Tantric practitioners transcend gender binaries to experience ultimate femininity and participate in the cosmic renewal of life, questioning dichotomous bodies and an exclusively biological motherhood.
Paper long abstract:
Based on anthropological participatory fieldwork among Tantric Śrīvidyā practitioners in South India, I illustrate emic concepts of gender and motherhood that challenge Eurocentric notions of dichotomous bodies and biological motherhood.
Revolving around the erotic and benevolent goddess Tripurasundarī, this contemporary Śrīvidyā tradition worships the Goddess both, as anthropomorphic sensual female being and as cosmic yoni (womb), origin of everything manifest and pre-manifest.
Of the Goddess’ complex ritual corpus, the practice of kalāvāhana is particularly relevant. Unique to the Śrīvidyā lineage studied, it foresees that male and female practitioners alike identify with the Goddess, thus participating in her divinity, ultimate femininity and cosmic creativity. Sitting on a stone-formation the shape of a yoni, ritual receivers are touched on various body parts where fire, sun, moon and the Goddess’ retinue of deities are invoked at the chant of mantras. The female serpent energy Kuṇḍalinī residing at the bottom of the spinal column is thus aroused and rises from the genital area to the head-crown. Once identification with the Goddess is established, the ritual receiver/Goddess is worshipped as they/she desire. Pleasing the Goddess is paramount, as this nurtures her creative impetus, which manifests as the renewal of auspicious life.
In becoming the Goddess, Śrīvidyā practitioners transcend the manifest, differentiated world of binaries and come to experience a world of pre-manifest, undifferentiated and all-encompassing femininity where maleness and femaleness are solely potentialities. Additionally, by becoming conduits of the Goddess’ creative pleasure, practitioners directly and fundamentally participate in her generative outpour, thus becoming ultimate Mothers.
Anders Gustavsson (University of Oslo)
Paper short abstract:
In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was a struggle between the principle of moderation and the principle of total abstinence from alcohol. How have the meetings between different approaches gone in religious settings in Sweden? How did the concepts of honor, dishonesty and shame apply?
Paper long abstract:
The principle of moderation within the Swedish state church required a clear condemnation of those who regularly exceeded the limits of what was considered acceptable. But even some priests drank more alcohol than the norm of moderation allowed. The popular outlook was evidently to tolerate this as long as the priest could perform his duties adequately.
Pro-temperance priests could encounter resistance in their locality. It was believed that priests who fought for abstinence could become victims of witchcraft. This could transform them from champions of temperance to abusers of alcohol. The folk narratives served as tools in the struggle against the principle of total abstinence.
In the late 1800s, religious revival movements that demanded total abstinence from alcohol instead of moderation were established in Sweden as free churches. My aim is to examine what steps the congregation took to uphold the norms within the group. Thus an informer system came into existence. When rumours about breaking of the rules became known to the leaders of the congregation, thorough inquiries were undertaken.
There were critical accounts among outsiders about Pentecostalists that some of them were able to drink a glass of beer or wine if they were invited. The condition was that no other Pentecostalist should notice. This shows that It is important to study folklore about breaking of the religious rules.
Mircea Paduraru (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University)
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the cultural processes by which dead bodies are turned into relics. The demonstration follows two argumentative lines: how the living deal with corpses and how dead bodies shape the living, since objects (lifeless bodies) are never just static, inert instances.
Paper long abstract:
The paper explores the cultural processes by which dead bodies are turned into relics. The demonstration follows two argumentative lines: how the living deal with corpses (dealing with how the living project and invest dead bodies with sacred values and expectations according to the condition of the local religious habitus, politics of meaning, and the dynamics of the religious field) and how dead bodies shape the living, since – in the perspective of Bruno Latour, Jan Hoder, Sonia Hazard or Manuel Vesquez – objects are never just static, inert instances, but have the capacity to shape, trigger responses and determine human action.
Riikka Patrikainen (University of Eastern Finland)
Paper short abstract:
Autoethnographic method gives a unique possibility to do research in the Orthodox funerals otherwise so difficult to access especially during the COVID-19. What is the role of the singer compared to the priest, when it is actually the cantor who gives voice to all the funeral service?
Paper long abstract:
The autoethnographic approach is a new way to provide information about the Eastern Orthodox funeral rite and it is a delicate research method for doing fieldwork in the funerals otherwise so difficult to enter as an outsider – especially during the pandemic of COVID-19. I am a cantor in the Orthodox Church of Finland and a cultural researcher, and these two positions give me a rare possibility to see and study the funeral rites from inside.
In this paper I will ask how does singing the liturgical texts construct the embodied experience of the funeral rite? While the priest is the main celebrant of the funeral, I want to examine how the cantor actually gives voice to the funeral rite, expressing, through liturgical texts, the lament of the deceased, the mourning of the bereaved, and the comfort and hope offered by the teaching of the Church about the eternal life after death. In my study will also interview other cantors about their experiences of singing in the funerals and I will compare their experience to mine.
Being the subject and the object of the study as a researcher and as a singing cantor will definitely alter my way of understanding the funeral rite, my own behaviour in it and also the experiences of the other cantors. Reflecting this in my autoethnographic writing and thereafter in this paper is an important part of the study.
Lina Leparskienė (Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore)
Paper short abstract:
Autoethnographic method can be applied as the clue to balance personal impact on the research results of religion. In my study of the cult of the picture of Our Lady of Trakai autoethnography is inevitable and necessary to enclose complicated reality behind history, art and prayers.
Paper long abstract:
The focus of the religion and beliefs might implicate, that a researcher sympathizes with spiritual part of human culture, or on the contrary – seeks to disclose irrationality of supernatural experiences and religious practices. Autoethnographic method could be applied as the clue to balance personal impact on the research results, but in Lithuania autoethnography is still not so welcome. In my research on the catholic cult of the picture of Our Lady of Trakai autoethnography seems to be inevitable for a several reasons – the qualitative interviews with life stories and subjective experiences are collected; the phenomena has involved me personally into propaganda of the cult; the object is in my native town where I was involuntary participant of church activities form the childhood; my own religious experiences makes effect on analytical processes. I know how strictly Catholics were labeled to be heretics by Orthodox Church and vice versa. This cognition comes from personal experience of becoming orthodox in the early nineties. Such tensions were particularly intense in post-soviet times, and it is only one example of the similar issues. Without an attempt understanding mostly silent relations and conflicts between groups, personalities and organization, without involvement of the personal experiences we will see a picture of the Our Lady of Trakai only through the light of art history and sophisticated version of the cult. Yet involvement of the subjective materials opens much more delicate boundaries that have to be explained or even concealed by the researcher.