(Place)Identity

Dayal Paleri: "Seva, Spirituality and Community: Shifting Modalities of Everyday Hindu Nationalism in Kerala, South India"

In the southern state of Kerala, the Hindu nationalist politics find itself in the margins as they were unable to register any electoral success despite their hegemonic political and cultural presence in all other parts of India. The successive electoral defeat of the Bharateeya Janata P arty (Indian People's Party) in the state leads to the assumption that Hindu nationalism in Kerala is anomalous to its mainstream political culture. However, through a critical ethnography of the everyday activities of the Hindu nationalist organizational network in central Kerala, this paper challenges the mainstream academic conceptions about the marginality of Hindu nationalism in the state and argues that the Hindu nationalist network led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National volunteer organization) uses a strategy of constructing a Hindu political majority through non-electoral organizations intervening in the arena of seva (social service) (Through Seva Bharathi), temple protection and community building (through Kshethra samrakshana Samiti) and ordinary spirituality (Through Vivekananda Kendra). We argue that this mode of politics that focuses on everyday life leads to the formation of aggressive Hindu majoritarian sensibilities in the region's religious and familial spaces that have the prospect of translating into a political majority.

Anna Becker: "Becoming a Pious Muslim: Processes of Embodying Conversion to Islam Among Polish Women Converts"

This paper, drawn from my master’s thesis, explores the processes undertaken by ethnic Polish women converts to Islam in order to cultivate more pious religious selves while forming a new Muslim identity following their conversion. Drawing from recent ethnographic fieldwork in Poland among convert women, I will analyze the various practices and rituals they employ to become more pious along with other changes they have made in their lives. Some examples of these changes include the incorporation of the five daily Islamic prayers in their routines, impacting their family, work, and leisure time; or observing the month of Ramadan, where fasting necessitates the complete abstention from food and water and encourages extra worship. Key to understanding these active efforts is the concept of habitus, popularized by Bourdieu (1990, 1977) and elaborated upon by Mahmood (2005), which contextualizes the daily lives of my research participants in a process of reconstituting oneself to replace their former habitus with a new, Muslim habitus. The active efforts undertaken permeate every aspect of the convert’s life, setting them at odds not only with their former selves, but with the majority Catholic society they live in—oftentimes making for lonely journeys.

Nadia Zasanska: "'Spiritual Mobilization': War Rhetoric of the Russian Orthodox Church in Social Media"

The study defines the social media discourse of the ROC in 2022-23 as an example of purity discourse aimed to legitimize Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. In September 2022, after the start of mobilization in Russia, Patriarch Kiril announced “spiritual mobilization”, which means that a death of a Russian soldier in Ukraine would be considered a sacrifice for others, so it would wash away all the sins that a person committed earlier. This statement and metaphor of “washing away” triggered the intensification of purity rhetoric all over the social media of the ROC. The religious actors called for spiritual mobilization and ‘purification’ in Russian society, which meant regular church attendance, confessions and prayers. Moral purity was addressed as the condition of fast victory. However, along with the sacralization of Russia’s war against Ukraine, bloggers intensified anti-LGBT and pro-life rhetoric among their followers. ROC bloggers on Telegram, Youtube and Instagram label such themes as signs of ‘dirt’, ‘decay’ and sinfulness within Russian society that prevent Russia from victory in Ukraine. Focusing on metaphors dirty-pure within the dichotomy of sin-innocence, the study demonstrates the structure of purity discourse, popular referents of purity used in the context of war and warriors, and purity practices used by chaplains in the Russian army. The metaphors of purity rhetoric migrate within various digital and non-digital spaces, activating new referents, symbols and meaning.

Špela Sevšek Šramel, Svetlana Kmecová: "Spirituality in Three Contemporary Slovak Novels From the Perspective of the Depiction of Literary Space and the Use of Linguistic Means"

Spirituality in three contemporary Slovak novels from the perspective of the depiction of literary space and the use of linguistic means Abstract: One of the distinctive tendencies of the contemporary Slovak novel is documentary - autobiographical. The category of literary space is highlighted in these fictions. The question of identity and contact with the traditional takes place in a regional, ethnically and confessionally diverse environment. The paper discusses three awarded novels from 2019, Čepiec by K. Kucbelova, Šeptuchy by A. Sabuchova and Svätyne by D. Madro, all of which, probably not by chance, coincide with the theme of contemporary spirituality. All three of them, each in its own way, deal, among other subjects, with the key thematic areas of this conference, i.e. ritual, identity, including spatial, and healing or (auto)therapy. These traditionally ethnological topics are approached in the paper from other perspectives, namely the literary and linguistic means and strategies used. The literary part of the analysis and comparison of the novels deals with the exploitation of the potential of the regional setting and the use of specific narrative strategies related to the topics of ritual and therapy. The linguistic part focuses on the language means employed by the authors in the three areas mentioned above, dealing mainly with the choice of lexis, symbols, metaphors and phraseology, examining the texts mainly from the perspective of ethnolinguistics and ethnophraseology.

Igor Jurekovič: "From Body Postures to Body Techniques: Studying Christian Charismatic Bodies in Slovenia"

Religious studies have in recent decades taken a material turn, shifting the analytical focus away from religious ideas and onto religious materiality – be it places, sounds, objects, or bodies. Focusing on the later promises to reinvigorate both theoretical and empirical studies of religion. The past decades have also seen an increase in research on Charismatic Christianity as it rapidly grows in number, particularly in the Global South. Combining these two research cornerstones, the presentation aims at discussing religious bodies as observed during fieldwork in three Slovenian Chrisitan Charismatic communities: a Charismatic Catholic Renewal community, a Pentecostal church and a neocharismatic community with no ties to any mainline Christian church. The presentation is based on preliminary results of participant observation and conducted interviews. It will argue that converting to such a community necessitates obtaining a certain religious body style – a body logic. In main, this consists of adopting certain, at first uncomfortable, religious postures, which develop into Christian Charismatic body techniques. It will be argued that such techniques both enable the development of appropriate religious beliefs and act as their embodiment.

Johnson Mathew John: "Water in Ecumenical Theology(ies) – A Paradigm of Material Religion"

In Christian faith traditions water is a strong metaphor for divine activity and divine space.. Water in the Christian scriptures has not only been the milieu of divine intervention, but of sanctification and new life in its fullness of justice and peace in God’s reign. Given the context of the significance of water in religious traditions, especially in Christian spirituality, the affirmation of water rights is inherent to the ethos of Christian communities. Recently the ecumenical circles and the ecumenical discussions have given a lot of importance to water and the sustainability of water in development discourses. There are ecumenical documents, theological statements, biblical hermeneutics giving prime importance to the spirituality of water and the need for sustainability of water. This has taken the whole realm of contemporary spirituality into a different dimension where material religion has met with intersectionality, hybridity and peoples’ movements. The paper is research into the realm of water and its importance in peoples’ spiritualities and the evolution of Christian theologies addressing material religion. It also addresses the contemporary trends in spirituality where the material sustainability cannot be detached from religious discussions. 

Yaroslav Yuvsechko: "Religious Minorities in Ukraine as Creators of Alternative Norms: Relations with Dominant Religions, Society and the State Under the Challenges of Wartime"

Attention is drawn to the vulnerability of religious minorities (RM) in Ukraine, their current status and interactions with state, dominant religions and society. The legislation of Ukraine provides a high level of freedom of religion or belief. But in practice the state cannot guarantee the equality of religious communities with not many followers. Traditional (dominant) religions consider some RM in Ukraine as hostile. Ukrainian society has not yet perceived many RM as native and natural, but mostly already perceives their spread as a normal process. In connection with the Russian invasion RM in Ukraine face new challenges. Many communities lost their buildings or were forced to leave them in the occupied territories, and some moved to other regions of Ukraine or abroad and started their activities anew. We explore the issues concerning RM in Ukraine under the wartime: freedom of expression and position of multiculturality in the new reality; the level of the state support or loyalty to RM; how they compete with established religions; how actively RM interact with society or they are on the path of marginality; assessment of safety among the believers of RM.