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Dear colleagues,
* *
We are inviting papers for the panel
*Spirituality against religion: the role of gender and power *
* *
*EASA conference, Maynooth, Ireland, August 24th till 27th, 2010*
* *
We would really appreciate if you could forward this information to other
colleagues who might be interested.
Thank you
All the Best
Anna Fedele and Kim Knibbe
* *
*Convenors: **Dr. Anna Fedele (Lisbon University Institute, Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris)*
*Dr. Kim Knibbe (dept. of social and cultural anth**ropology, Vrije
Universiteit, Amsterdam)*
* *
*Deadline for submissions: ** 1st March 2010.***
* *
In this panel we want to discuss the processes of (gendered) power among
people who call themselves 'spiritual' rather than 'religious' and
problematize the opposition between these two terms. What kinds of power can
we discern despite people's assertions that they only follow their own
‘inner voice'? We invite papers rooted in ethnographic research that
explicitly discuss processes of (gendered) power in "New Age" or Neopagan
movements or other social and religious movements using the
distinction/opposition between religion and spirituality.
N.B.: We plan to turn the papers of this panel into a publication. This
means that if your paper is selected for the panel, we expect you to send it
to us before the conference, so that we can start looking for a publisher
and working on a book-proposal.
*Abstract*
In social sciences, the debates on the increasing popularity of alternative
spiritualities and the fate of religion in Europe and Northern America has
in the past few years been dominated by the thesis that posits a 'shift'
from religion, recognizing a transcendent authority outside the self, to
spirituality, focused on the inner self as the ultimate authority. This
shift is furthermore linked to a broad array of attitudes (Paul Heelas et
al. 2005, Peter Berger et al. 2008: 14-15). However, we might wonder whether
this thesis does not in fact replicate the internal discourses of
alternative spiritualities, obscuring the ways in which the fields of
alternative spiritualities are themselves socially structured and the role
of various kinds of power in them. What kinds of critique are embedded
within the distinction between 'religion' and 'spirituality'? How can we
theorize power in these settings? Gender, for example, is one issue that is
hardly addressed except descriptively. Although people might be searching
for a 'religion without power', from a social scientific point of view there
is no such thing as religion without power.
In this panel we want to address the question how the categories 'religion'
and 'spirituality' are constructed, how this relates to gender and what
theories of power to bring to this field.
*Submission*
You can submit a proposal for a paper via the EASA website choosing the
workshop W014
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2010/panels.php5?View=Workshops
Or access the panel directly and click on “Propose a paper”:
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2010/panels.php5?PanelID=591
Please note that you do not need to be a EASA member in order to submit a
paper, you can become a member and register once your paper is accepted.
--
Anna Fedele Ph.D
Visiting Scholar Stanford University
Research Fellow
CRIA - Lisbon University Institute
Groupe de Sociologie Politique et Morale
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris
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