Religionising Fieldwork and Fieldworking Religion: Hermeneutics of the engagement between religion and research methodologies in the field
3-4 November 2008

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Convenors:

James Kapalo, SOAS, Dept. Study of Religions
Stefania Travagnin, SOAS, Dept. Study of Religions

Keynote address:

Prof. Paul Gifford, Chair of African Christianity, SOAS, Dept. Study of Religions

Fieldwork is the arena within which we negotiate and integrate theoretical understanding and practical study of religion in the concrete world. From the perspective of religious studies, such an encounter between patterns of faith and practice and the discourse of ethnography is increasingly coming to determine the nature and validity of the research projects we undertake

In adopting the practice of fieldwork as a necessary step for any investigation on religion, we come to re-think theories and methods and to re-assess them in the light of experiences (and “surprises”) encountered in the field. Because in this way the practice of fieldwork often compels the junior researcher to re-examine analytical theorems and theoretical structures acquired in various disciplinary trainings (history, anthropology, sociology, ethnology, philosophy), and also their assumptions about the nature of the object of study, we judge the
theme of our workshop to be of central importance to the successful planning of doctoral research projects.

As the title suggests, this workshop aims to address the new challenges that students face in approaching fieldwork as a discourse in the Study of Religions (“religionising fieldwork”), and in engaging religion in the field (“fieldworking religion”).

Workshop Objectives

This workshop will serve as training for PhD students coming from different disciplines and whose research on religion involves fieldwork as a central component, and as an occasion to share and discuss issues about theory and practice of field-research.

This forum will also present an opportunity to promote a dialogue between SOAS Dept. Study of Religions and a number of students and scholars from other institutions.

By inviting speakers with different disciplinary approaches (such as anthropology, sociology and history of religion), we hope to encourage deeper critical reflection in the field of religious studies on classical and new methods of conducting fieldwork. In this way we aim to open up a broader debate on the necessity and modalities of the practice of intensive fieldwork in the light of post-modern and poststructuralist discourse on the field of Religious Studies.

Also, through the presentation of specific case studies that cover various geographical areas and religious traditions we hope to contribute to a pool of research that is `process reflexive’ and that speaks of both the `religious’ and the `religionist’ observer.

It is expected that the papers presented at the workshop will form the basis of a peer reviewed publication. Plans are in hand to make this possible.

Call for Papers

The organisers invite proposals for papers that explore reflexive methodologies of fieldwork on religious subjects. Research on any religious traditions and on any region will be considered. Only PhD students who have returned from an intense period (6 months minimum) of
fieldwork or those who have just completed their doctoral degree are eligible to submit abstracts.

Proposals should address one of the following four topics:

* Representing Persons

The role and agency of the `religious’ individual or personality are a recognised object of study of the scholar of the Study of Religion. This session aims to explore how the interactions, dialogue and encounters between the researcher and the `researched’ can reshape and
redefine the production of representations of religion. Papers are invited that explore the role of personalities, personal relationships and ideas of `personhood’ encountered in the field.

* Engaging Institutions

During a study in the field, the investigation of religion very often entails an encounter between the individual, and his or her research agenda, and the power and authority of institutions. Papers in this section should address the fieldworker’s interaction with religious
institutions and institutional religion and reflect on theoretical frameworks for approaching religion as institution.

* Animating Text

Texts and scriptures are often at the centre of lived religious experience, and as such are part of a material and social reality. Papers for this session should explore beyond the philological study of text into areas that address the relationship of the researcher to his `text’, such as its ethnographic context or its locatedness in community.

* Reading Performance

Performance is used here in the broadest sense to refer to a general orientation towards religious activity and the `doing of religion’. This may encompass everyday individual human action on a micro level to large scale spectacle such as the drama of liturgy or pilgrimage. Papers in this session should address questions that arise from the presence of the fieldworker on the context and conditions of performance, such as the fieldworker as sponsor or catalyst for performance, or the fieldworker as performer.

Submission deadline

Abstracts of 500 words must be submitted via email by 31 august 2008 to

James Kapalo (jk51@soas.ac.uk) and Stefania Travagnin (st8@soas.ac.uk).

See for descriptions the VISOR website or contact the VISOR office: info@visor.vu.nl / +31 20 5986603

Conversion and Time in Global Pentecostalism:
a lifelong ‘live’ experience

VU University Amsterdam
11-13 June 2008
Venue: Gebouw Pinkstergemeente Amsterdam
Arent Janszoon Ernststraat 302 Amsterdam

The conference seeks to explore new directions for the study of conversion looking specifically to Pentecostalism. The need for new directions emerged out of the work of the research program Conversion Careers and Culture Politics in Global Pentecostalism at the VU University in Amsterdam.

We propose conversion to be a lifelong experience beyond the important notions of rupture and radical change while acknowledging them to be important elements in conversion stories and experiences. It is the continuous appeal to change and the recurrent negotiation of the present, past and future in conversion processes we want to stress in order to move away from time-restrained models. In that sense conversion is not only a lifelong but also a continuously ‘live’ experience, i.e. ‘in the here and now’. We believe that perceptions of time in Pentecostal practices are a powerful instrument in a world where people seem to be captured by culture and identity politics. It is through conversion that converts and converters understand culture and personal lives. In all the Pentecostalisms we study, conversion and the making of time and its various temporalities are reciprocally implicated in new and powerful ways, which, we feel, demand constructive scholarly engagement.

By emphasizing the mutually constitutive relationship between conversion and time, we will address the dynamic from multiple perspectives:

1) We will focus on the particular ways converts experience and address time and temporalities, i.e. past, present and future in their construction of a (new) Pentecostal identity.
2) We also will point to the embodiment of temporalities in the process of conversion, i.e. the body as mediating, construing and expressing conversion.
3) We further will rethink the relationship between time and space in conversion, taking in consideration how converts position themselves and move in what we could call a global and virtual Pentecostal space.

The conference program will be organized around these three perspectives. The program includes the following:

11 June
Public Event in Dutch. Communication of research findings to a large public

12 and 13 June
Keynote lectures by Matthew Engelke (London School of Economics and Political Science), Lewis Rambo (San Francisco Theological Seminary), Simon Coleman (University of Sussex)

Presentation of findings of the research programme ‘Conversion Careers and Culture Politics in Global Pentecostalism’, funded by the Dutch council for Scientific Research (NWO) and directed by Prof. Dr. A.F. Droogers. Researchers: Henri Gooren, Ikuya Noguchi, Linda van de Kamp, Miranda Klaver and Regien Smit.

Discussants and Presenters: Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Catherine Wanner, Clara Mafra, Mel Robeck ( to be confirmed), Birgit Meyer, Oscar Salemink, Rijk van Dijk, Martijn Oosterbaan, Marleen de Witte, Zé d’Abreu, Juliette Koning, Kim Knibbe.

If you wish to attend, please send an e-mail with your name and affiliation to conversionandtime@fsw.vu.nl.
Due to the need of arranging various logistic matters, we would like to encourage you to register before the date of May 31st.

Conference registration is free
Register via conversionandtime@fsw.vu.nl

For more information see Conference Conversion and Time

On the 27th and 28th of March 2008 the Leiden Institute for the Study of Religions (LISOR) is holding a conference with the title Religion, Public or Private? 

Keynote speakers include: 

• Prof. Meerten B. ter Borg, Leiden 
• Dr Bart Labuschagne, Leiden 
• Prof. David Novak, Toronto 
• Dr Armando Salvatore, Berlin 
• Prof. Linda Woodhead, Lancaster

The programme and other details can be found on: http://www.leidenuniv.nl/gg/Ficl/index.html

The School of Theology and Religious Studies at Bangor University,
Wales, will host a conference about the interpretations of spirit
possession between the 16th and 17th of May.
Spirit Possession is the key practice in many religions worldwide and
the cause of many prejudices against certain religions. The aim of the
conference is to discuss, debate, and evaluate the relevance of new
interpretations of spirit possession and their application to new
research areas. By bringing together scholars working on different
religions the conference hopes to break through the methodological
barriers that separate interpretations of trance and ecstasy, shamanism
and possession, Indian and African religions. Experts in different
religious traditions (from Indian religions and Islam to indigenous
American and African religions) will present keynote addresses of their
new methodologies, which they have developed working in their respective
fields, while other specialists will offer commentary and possible
applications of these new approaches to their own fields of research.
Those who would like to offer a paper are invited to submit a 200-word
abstract of their paper to Dr Bettina Schmidt (b.schmidt@bangor.ac.uk)
before Monday 10 March 2008. Speakers will be given 20 minutes for their
talk. The programme will be circulated in April. Speakers will be given
20 minutes for their talk. The aim is to publish afterwards a selection
of the papers.
Unfortunately no scholarship will be available for participants. Each
participant, including speakers, will be expected both to pay his or her
travel and accommodation expenses.

–
Dr Bettina E. Schmidt
Lecturer in the Study of Religions
Director of Graduate Studies
School of Theology and Religious Studies
Bangor University
Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2DG
phone 0044-1248-382646

GloPent (re)search engine

EASA 2008 conference: Experiencing Diversity and Mutuality

26-30 August, Ljubljana, Slovenia

African Christianities in Europe: the politics of religious recognition

(W029)
Location TBA
Date and Time TBA
Convenors
Simon Coleman (University of Sussex) s.m.coleman@ sussex.ac. uk
Ramon Sarró (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon)
ramon.sarro@ ics.ul.pt

Through an analysis of how some migrant churches seek recognition within and interact with other forms of Christianity, this panel explores the capacity of African Christian diasporas to reconfigure the European religious heritage, influence local identities and establish international connections.

The diffusion of Christianity in Africa has been a focus of anthropological research for more than half a century now, and it has proved a promising area in which to develop anthropological theory. Today, the input of African Christianities into anthropology continues and has been
augmented with an increasing body of research on how African churches fare in European contexts. Through an ethnographic analysis of local ‘politics of recognition’ , of how some migrant churches seek recognition within and interact with other forms of Christianity, this panel invites researchers to explore the capacity of African Christian diasporas to reconfigure
the European religious heritage, influence national and regional identities within the continent, and establish connections both across Europe and between Europe and Africa. Some of the questions that could frame our panel are:

1. Does religion serve as a resource for social and spiritual empowerment of African Christian migrants in European societies, for instance in relation to civil participation and social action?

2. How do African migrants and hosts, in particular ‘European’ churches, interact with each other in terms of a ‘politics of recognition’ and ‘culture politics’? More generally, how useful is the concept of ‘recognition’ in understanding both the aspirations and the ‘reception’ of such migrant churches?

3. What is the place of religion in the interplay between African migration and gender politics?

To propose a paper go to the EASA website. This must be done by March 31 at the very latest, and preferably earlier.

Feel free also to contact the organisers at s.m.coleman@sussex.ac.uk and ramon.sarro@ics.ul.pt

Professor Simon Coleman
Department of Anthropology
Arts C
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN1 9SJ
UK
s.m.coleman@ sussex.ac. uk
Tel.: +44-(0)1273- 678371
Editor, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI)