Lifelong Religion As Habitus

In this book, Helena Kupari examines the lived religion of Finnish, evacuee Karelian Orthodox women through an innovative reading and application of Pierre Bourdieu’s practice theory. After the Second World War, Finland ceded most of its Karelian territories to the Soviet Union. Over 400,000 Finns, including two thirds of the Finnish Orthodox Christians, lost their homes. This book traces the ways in which the religion of Orthodox women was affected by their displacement and their experiences as members of the Orthodox minority in post-war and contemporary Finland. It contributes to theoretical discussions on lived religion by producing an account of lifelong minority religion as habitus, or an embodied and practical “sense of religion”.

Religious ideas, practices, discourses, institutions, and social expressions are in constant flux. This volume addresses the internal and external dynamics, interactions between individuals, religious communities, and local as well as global society. The contributions concentrate on four areas: 1. Contemporary religion in the public sphere: The Tactics of (In)visibility among Religious Communities in Europe; Religion Intersecting De-nationalization and Re-nationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa; 2. Religious transformations: Forms of Religious Communities in Global Society; Political Contributions of Ancestral Cosmologies and the Decolonization of Religious Beliefs; Esoteric Tradition as Poetic Invention; 3. Focus on the individual: Religion and Life Trajectories of Islamists; Angels, Animals and Religious Change in Antiquity and Today; Gaining Access to the Radically Unfamiliar in Today’s Religion; Religion between Individuals and Collectives; 4. Narrating religion: Entangled Knowledge Cultures and the Creation of Religions in Mongolia and Europe; Global Intellectual History and the Dynamics of Religion; On Representing Judaism.

The editors of this volume have combined their expertise in discourse, contradiction, minority and diversity studies to suggest a change of perspective from categorisations into societal minorities and majorities towards an analysis of marginalising and centralising discourses. For this purpose, we have gathered interdisciplinary-minded authors from linguistics, literary and religious studies, political and historical sciences. Their contributions focus on contradictions of religious and national belonging as well as intersections of religion and nation in many different regions of the world from the 18th century until today. While illustrating the diversity and contradictions of religious and national belonging across time and space, the chapters of the book contribute to an understanding of the dynamics of questions of belonging and the associated constant renegotiations of power within these discursive processes.

Religion Online provides new insights about religiosity in a contemporary context, offering a comprehensive look at the intersection of digital media, faith communities, and practices of all sorts. Recent research on Apple users, video games, virtual worlds, artificial intelligence, digital music, and sports as religion supports the idea that media and religion, once considered separate entities, are in many cases the same thing. New media and religious practice can no longer be detached; this two-volume set discusses how religionists are embracing the Internet amidst cultural shifts of secularization, autonomous religious worship, millennials' affinity for new media, and the rise of fundamentalism in the global south. While other works describe case studies, this book explains how new media are interwoven into the very fabric of religious belief, behavior, and community. Chapters break down the past, present, and projected future of the use of digital media in relation to faith traditions of many varieties, extending from mainline Christianity to new religious movements. The book also examines the impacts of digital media on beliefs and practices around the world. In exploring these subjects, it calls on the study of culture, namely anthropology, to conceptualize a technological period as significant as the industrial revolution.

Women and Religiosity in Orthodox Christianity fills a significant gap in the sociology of religious practice: Studies focused on women’s religiosity have overlooked Orthodox populations, while studies of Orthodox practice (operating within the dominant theological, historical, and sociological framework) have remained gender-blind. The essays in this collection shed new light on the women who make up a considerable majority of the Orthodox population by engaging women’s lifeworlds, practices, and experiences in relation to their religion in multiple, varied localities, discussing both contemporary and pre-1989 developments. These contributions critically engage the pluralist and changing character of Orthodox institutional and social life by using feminist epistemologies and drawing on original ethnographic research to account for Orthodox women’s previously ignored perspectives, knowledges, and experiences. Combining the depth of ethnographic analysis with geographical breadth and employing a variety of research methodologies, this book expands our understanding of Orthodox Christianity by examining Orthodox women of diverse backgrounds in different settings: parishes, monasteries, and the secular spaces of everyday life, and under shifting historical conditions and political regimes. In defiance of claims that Orthodox Christianity is immutable and fixed in time, these essays argue that continuity and transformation can be found harmoniously in social practices, demographic trends, and larger material contexts at the intersection between gender, Orthodoxy, and locality. Contributors: Kristin Aune, Milica Bakic-Hayden, Maria Bucur, Ketevan Gurchiani, James Kapaló, Helena Kupari, Ina Merdjanova, Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, Eleni Sotiriou, Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir, Detelina Tocheva

Published in Open Access with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Winner of the Manfred Lautenschläger Award! Religion is never simply there. In Religion and the Everyday Life of Manichaeans in Kellis, Mattias Brand shows where and when ordinary individuals and families in Egypt practiced a Manichaean way of life. Rather than portraying this ancient religion as a well-structured, totalizing community, the fourth-century papyri sketch a dynamic image of lived religious practice, with all the contradictions, fuzzy boundaries, and limitations of everyday life. Following these microhistorical insights, this book demonstrates how family life, gift-giving, death rituals, communal gatherings, and book writing are connected to our larger academic debates about religious change in late antiquity.

The Oxford Handbook of Mary offers an interdisciplinary guide to Marian Studies, including chapters on textual, literary, and media analysis; theology; Church history; art history; studies on devotion in a variety of forms; cultural history; folk tradition; gender analysis; apparitions and apocalypticism. Featuring contributions from a distinguished group of international scholars, the Handbook looks at both Eastern and Western perspectives and attempts to correct imbalance in previous books on Mary towards the West. The volume also considers Mary in Islam and pilgrimages shared by Christian, Muslim, and Jewish adherents. While Mary can be a source of theological disagreement, this authoritative collection shows Mary's rich potential for inter-faith and inter-denominational dialogue and shared experience. It covers a diverse number of topics that show how Mary and Mariology are articulated within ecclesiastical contexts but also on their margins in popular devotion. Newly-commissioned essays describe some of the central ideas of Christian Marian thought, while also challenging popularly-held notions. This invaluable reference for students and scholars illustrates the current state of play in Marian Studies as it is done across the world.

This volume examines matsuri (festivals) from both urban and rural communities in Japan, showing their interconnectedness to religious life. Based on ethnographic research, authors explore historical change, identity, affect, cultural heritage, tourism, and the intersection of religion with politics.