Doctoral students and their supervisors may be interested in this workshop:
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 ([log in to unmask]) and Stefania Travagnin ([log in to unmask]).
Posted by:
Jim Beckford
Professor Emeritus
Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1926 851252
Fax: +44 (0)2476 523497
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