Conference Panel: Experiencing the Sacred between Religion and Spirituality

7th  ETHNOGRAPHY AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH CONFERENCE
University of Bergamo (Italy), 6-9 June 2018
 
PANEL: Experiencing the Sacred between Religion and Spirituality
​
Convenors:
Stefania Palmisano (Università di Torino) [email protected]
Nicola Pannofino (Università di Torino) [email protected]
Emily Pierini (University of Wales Trinity Saint David / The American University of Rome) [email protected]
 
‘Religion’ and ‘Spirituality’ are terms of a binomial that is at the core of recent debates in the field of religious studies. Their relation is variably understood either as opposition or complementarity. In the first instance, according to the formula ‘spiritual but not religious’ used by those who cultivate a personal relationship with the transcendent beyond institutionalized religions. In the latter one, spirituality expresses the subjective dimension of religion. Both these definitions emphasize lived experience, and especially a sacred that permeates everyday practices, close to the body, to sensory perception and to the agency of the person in transition between multiple secular spheres of society.
In order to delve into this field, we invite contributions grounded in ethnographic research focussing upon the relationship between religion and spirituality in the social contexts of everyday life, and that stress a methodological reflection upon the status of ethnography in the study of lived religion and spirituality.
Some of the areas around which this theme can be developed are:

• spirituality and religion in everyday life
• spirituality and gender
• body, emotions and spirituality
• the perceptive dimension in the experience of the sacred
• health, wellbeing and spirituality
• spirituality and the notion of personhood
• creative expressions of the religious in secular contexts
• the ethnography of spirituality: how the ethnographer perceives the experiences of others

 
SESSION 1. Thursday 7 June – afternoon 16.00-19.00

1. God across borders. Patterns of catholic immigrant spirituality in Milan. Samuele Davide Molli (Università Cattolica di Milano)
2. Ethnographic study of monasteries in Poland. Marcin Jewdokimov (Faculty of Humanities, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw)
3. Agency and self-transformation in Catholic vocational discernment. Ekatarina Khonieneva (European University at Saint Petersburg / Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography)    
4. Ordinary lives in (extra?)ordinary times. Understanding everyday spirituality of young Congolese refugees in Kampala. Alessandro Gusman (University of Turin)
5. The invisible infrastructure of a spiritual metropolis. Religious ties between jihad de l’ame and practice of everyday life in the Sufi city of Tuba. Guido Nicolas Zingari (University of Turin)          
6. The Invisible that we all see in the Valley of Makua in the Island of O’ahu. Emanuela Borgnino (University of Milano Bicocca and University of Hawaii at Mānoa)

        
SESSION 2. Friday 8 June – morning 9.30-12.30

1. Spirituality and religiosity in transformation. Biographies of Orthodox Christians in post-Soviet Russia. Galina Novikova (University of Giessen, Germany)
2. Sacred Nature. Contemporary forms of green spirituality. Antonio Camorrino (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) 
3. Knowledge production and practices of interpretations in New Age spirituality. Andrei Tiuktiaev (European University at Saint Petersburg / Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography)
4. The Sacred Self: Negotiating with the sacred within through the body. Matteo Di Placido (Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca Department of Sociology and Social Research)         
5. Sin City Religion: Exploring the intersections of entertainment culture, technology, and religion. Josiah Kidwell (Department of Sociology, University of Nevada-Las Vegas)            

 
Conference website: http://www.etnografiaricercaqualitativa.it/?page_id=517