Paper short abstract:

During Covid19 lockdowns, a community of Dutch Shi'as navigated Muharram majalis both online and offline. The use of digital technologies and media grew, but this was not highly consumed by the average Shi'a practitioner. How do Shias perceive/practice majalis online and offline?

Paper long abstract:

During the 2020 wave of Covid19-related lockdowns, a community of Dutch Shi'as navigated Muharram rituals both online and offline. Muharram rituals involve gathering for a majlis, a congregational sermon and ritual practice that commemorates the historical Battle of Karbala. This is a long-standing, 1400-year old practice that has been foundational in Shi'a identity, practice, and cultural memory. Usually, a majlis is a deeply embodied and inter-corporeal experience. It is highly mediated through all sorts of technologies, with online digital technologies gaining momentum in the past few decades. My expectations during fieldwork were that due to the pandemic, I'd see great changes in how a majlis was conducted. However, the tension between pandemic restrictions and communal rituals was managed in a way that produced unexpected outcomes. Notably, that the use of digital technologies and media grew, but this was not highly consumed by the average Shi'a practitioner, nor even seen as a viable substitute for the "real thing".

This paper argues that the way crisis- understood as rupture, disconnect, and disengagement- is managed by communities depends deeply on who they perceive themselves to be; on relationality; inter-corporeality; collective memory; and what outcome the community envisions. I will substantiate this argument with ethnographic research conducted with a Shi'a group in the Netherlands.