Catholic devotion in the Americas

Many contemporary arguments about agency rely on implicit psychologies or conceptions of human mental functioning even as they attempt to direct attention away from the idea of a freely acting, completely autonomous individual. This article argues that even when the concept of agency is ‘displaced’ or reinterpreted away from the liberal subject, the concept always draws on such a psychological base whether those debts are hidden or declared. Drawing on literature from feminist theory, anthropology, and sociology on women's decisions to undergo elective cosmetic surgery, the first section of the article explores ways that agency has been conceptualized with regard to beauty culture and disciplinary bodily technologies in a US context. The second section of this article takes up women's religious practice in Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety (2005).

Drawing upon an ethnographic study of South Korean evangelicalism and women's religious practices conducted between 1996 and 2006, this chapter revisits the important question of religious power. By showing the complex ways in which Korean evangelical women practice and appropriate their faiths, it highlights the dimensions and operations of religious power that often remain underexplored in discussions of lived religion—its disciplinary dimensions. In so doing, it addresses in particular two of the “edges” with which this volume is concerned: pursuing critical engagement with religion and exploring religious experiences outside of the US context. The observations and analyses presented in the chapter are based largely on ethnographic data and interviews gathered from a study of two large, middle-class evangelical churches in Seoul—one Presbyterian and the other Methodist—which incorporate observations and studies of more than twenty evangelical churches in Seoul.

Feminine Matters: Women's Religious Practices in. Portuguese Town. Lena Gemzoe. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000. 273 pp.

Socioeconomic change in the era of globalization is omnipresent. The impact seems to be more in the case of indigenous people. The present article is an attempt to understand these changes from both the emic and etic perspective for the Particular Vulnerable tribal Paudi Bhuyan. As any indigenous people, the inherent capacity to protect the change in their cultural core is a challenge. With the effect of Globalization, there is a steady change in the culture, and the article tries to decipher these changes and the way forward. The changes that are being studied are related to social, which include life cycle rituals, religious practices, material culture, administration (politics), and economic pursuits. These changes will lead to adaptation of certain phenomena, which is either voluntarily adapted or due to incorporation to facilitate the ease in administrative functionality of the Union of India. Thus, social change is inevitable to any society and especially the indigenous population such as Paudi Bhuyans. The present article tries to find out the primitive cultural expression and the present form of socioeconomic changes that are relevant to the Paudi Bhuyans society. To carry out the study, the researcher carried out ethnographic study in three districts of Odisha where the concentration of Paudi Bhuyans is maximum. The findings can be summarized as though there are changes in socioeconomic condition from the past, but the cultural core related to life cycle rituals, administration, economy is still significantly present in the Paudi Bhuyans.

This article examines, through multiple film screenings and Focus Group Discussions, the potential of Black November (2012) to initiate social change in the 20th anniversary of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s death. Current research on African film is skewed towards broad representations of urban and rural lives, thus making the reception of indigenous popular films an understudied area. Virtually absent in African film scholarship is the reception of the films as agents of potential social change. The nexus between popular films and social change is examined here in the aftermath of failed formalized processes of conflict resolution. Recent popular film reception studies have transnational foci, which focus on African emigrants’ conditions of life in foreign localities. The paper, therefore, evaluates the impact of popular films on viewers and how they interpret the film as being instrumental in changing oppressive situations in the Niger Delta. It deploys the theory that the arts function as peace-builders and tools for social change among conflicting parties in the light of the Niger Delta struggles, particularly those championed by Ken Saro-Wiwa, which are revisited two decades after his internationally condemned murder. Findings include that Black November cannot function in isolation to produce social change but must work within a broad framework of strategies serving the same goal.

The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) book of Hosea presents the messages associated with Hosea the son of Beeri, a prophet active in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the second half of the 8th century bce. Hosea is the first book in the Book of the Twelve (Minor Prophets) and is canonical for Jews and Christians. The book contains a vast diversity of metaphors that describe Yhwh and Israel in multiple, sometimes paradoxical, ways, and it features (often negative) imagery drawn from realms such as family, sexuality, nature, wildlife, and farming. The book is best known for the portrayal of the prophet’s marriage to a sexually promiscuous woman (Gomer) and their tumultuous family life as a metaphor for Yhwh’s relationship with Israel, especially its rulers (chs. 1–3). However, debate surrounds most issues related to the book’s origins, composition, setting, and relationship to history (and to any biographical information about Hosea and Gomer), as well the interpretation of its depictions of gender and violence and its portrayals of women. Often thought to be concerned solely with Israel’s religious life (perhaps especially the people’s abandonment of Yhwh for other gods), Hosea shows a broader interest in Israel’s political, social, and economic realities. Set against the backdrop of the growing imperialism of the Neo-Assyrian Empire across the ancient Near East in the mid-8th century bce, Hosea’s messages advocate a particular understanding of Israel’s identity as Yhwh’s people (and the political, socioeconomic, and religious practices that should accompany it). Israel should be exclusively devoted to Yhwh and resist seeking other gods, religious practices, economic systems, and political alliances for their provision and protection. Major theological themes include the people’s abandonment of Yhwh, judgment, repentance, and hope for restoration. The rhetoric and language with which these messages are presented call for the ongoing use of metaphor theory; gender analysis; feminist criticism; masculinity studies; trauma interpretation; and violence studies; alongside more traditional historical, literary, and theological inquiries.

This research is an ethnographic study of the Bengal Vaishnava Sahajiya tradition, which is the tantric influenced tradition blended together with Bengali devotion. Esoteric ritual is the Vaishnava Sahajiya key religious practice which leads the practitioners to liberation as well as marginalisation. Through participant observation, I draw on the unconventional lives and renunciant experiences of Vaishnava Sahajiya female renouncers to highlight the diversity in the lives of third-world women and the variety of female renunciation in South Asia. Brahmanical renunciant themes of celibacy, solitude and social engagement appearing in the Vaishnava religious practices of brahmacharya, madhukari and sadhu seva, will respectively be taken into account in analysing female renouncers’ positions and how they exercise their agency within the Vaishnava context and in the broader context of South Asia. Female agency as seen in the Vaishnava tradition will demonstrate that third-world women, South Asian women in particular, do not adhere to the typical perceptions of them attributed by some Western Feminists, being powerless, subordinated and victims of a patriarchal system. Indeed, women in the context of Vaishnava are under patriarchal control where men either of this worldly (householder) or the other worldly (renouncer) are dominant actors. The women, however, make the most of their lives by utilising womanhood, motherhood and wifehood qualities in a male defined renunciant sphere. The extent to which Vaishnava female practitioners become autonomous actors and gain the most benefit from their marginalised situation is to conform to what has been prescribed to them; that is, being good Bengali women whose lives are valued by being dependent to either a male partner, gurus, disciples, or lay the community.

Anthropology and History Ayala Fader (bio) Introduction: An Anthropological Approach to Jews and Judaism I am a cultural and linguistic anthropologist who studies contemporary Jewish life in New York City. As a cultural anthropologist, my approach is an ethnographic one, which is distinguished by its emphasis on participant observation—that is, participating in and observing the everyday lives of those with whom I work. The majority of my research has been with ultra-Orthodox Jewish women and girls in Brooklyn, or, as I call them, “nonliberal” Jews.1 This has meant, for example, that I spent two years in a Hasidic girls’ school observing kindergarteners and first-graders. I visited with Hasidic women and children in their homes as they ate supper, played and did homework, and I attended a class for Hasidic brides, among many other activities. As I participated and observed, I also took field notes on these experiences, which created one body of data. I am also a linguistic anthropologist, which has shaped both my methodology and my analytic focus on language. In my research, I regularly record, transcribe and then analyze naturally occurring talk, creating another body of data. For example, in my book, Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn (2009), I not only included transcripts of interactions in homes, schools and other neighborhood contexts in Yiddish and English, but I also analyzed the distinctive languages that Hasidic men and women speak: Hasidic Yiddish and Hasidic English (called “Yinglish” by many in the community). In Mitzvah Girls, I used this focus on talk to theorize about nonliberal religions more generally: I argued that women and girls use language and other embodied practices (such as modest comportment or modest [End Page 1] fashions) to create an alternative religious modernity. This religious modernity includes an explicit critique of secular modernity—specifically, the notions of freedom, autonomy, pluralism and tolerance. I have also used the approaches of cultural and linguistic anthropology to study Jewish prayer, institution building and education in a synagogue study that I, together with ethnomusicologist Mark Kligman, conducted in New York City. Drawing on this research, I have written about Jewish spirituality—the emotional, individualized experience of God—and its relationship to ongoing neoliberal processes of gentrification in a Manhattan neighborhood (2007). Currently, I am working on two different projects—projects connected by their attention to digital media—that emerge out of my commitment to including Jews and Judaism in anthropological conversations about religion, politics and social change. The first, conducted with Owen Gottlieb, is an ethnographic study of Occupy Judaism, the Jewish inflection of Occupy Wall Street. We are exploring Occupy Judaism’s relationship to Occupy Faith and Occupy Wall Street; the ways in which social media, religious practice and political activism interact; and what all of this may tell us about religion and the public sphere in 21st-century urban America (nd. Fader and Gottlieb). The second, longer-term project involves a return to the world of nonliberal Judaism. My focus this time is the moral panic that indicates a moment of transition: many community members claim that the Internet is leading nonliberal Jews to stray off the derech (path, meaning to leave orthodoxy). This panic became very public in 2012, when some rabbinic authorities held an asifa (gathering) in the Citi Field baseball stadium in New York to warn of the dangers the Internet posed. Forty thousand attended and the event was covered in the Jewish and more mainstream media. Digital media, with its private access to knowledge is creating spaces to challenge to the moral authority of the leadership. In response, there has been increasing communal concern with “strengthening emune (faith), which has included changing cultural beliefs about media altogether (Fader 2013) I locate this moral panic in a broader historical context in order to understand processes of change in a nonliberal religious community. Increasing religious stringencies and political infighting among the leadership over the past fifteen years has led to a critical backlash among nonliberal Jews in their twenties and thirties. These Jews, men and women, are creating new forms of social life and community, facilitated by digital media. For example, I am finding...

Mass media is a device that can spread the requisite knowledge and attitudes quickly and widely.

How to explain juvenile delinquent behaviour in the Japan of the nineties? Are its reasons really fundamentally different from those in other societies? Juvenile Delinquency in Japan, written by leading Japanese and German scholars, for the first time looks comprehensively into the phenomenon. It does so from a variety of disciplines; law, sociology, education, and Japanese studies. Thus it explores the legal provisions, conditions of schooling, family life, and social change in society as a framework for understanding delinquent behaviour in Japanese high school students. It becomes clear that reasons for delinquency are the same in Japan as in other societies. Fundamentally different, however, are the high sensitivity to delinquent behaviour and the tremendous efforts to prevent nonconformist behaviour.

This paper examines how financial independence is reshaping the lives of middle-class women in India. Caught between traditional expectations and new economic possibilities, these women face a particular set of challenges. The researchers explore how having their own money helps women push back against gender stereotypes, break free from economic dependency, and navigate cultural restrictions that have long limited women's choices. Drawing on scholarship from sociology, economics, and gender studies, the paper traces women's changing economic roles in India and shows how education and employment are transforming what's possible. At the same timestructural and cultural obstacles persist. It concludes with some thoughts on policies that could genuinely support women's financial empowerment. Financial stability is not just as an economic issue but it is something deeply tied to social and cultural change.

The significance of local periodicals as a source of information about the everyday life of residents in the small town of Halych during Ukraine’s independence period (1991–2016) is investigated in the article. The research materials include issues of the newspapers Halych Word (Halytske Slovo) and Dniester Wave (Dnistrova Khvylia), reflecting the social, cultural, economic, and everyday aspects of the community life. The author is analysing thematic sections of the published works, which reveal a wide range of issues, from social and administrative-economic processes to cultural and religious practices. For instance, the newspaper sections of the 1990s, such as Our Calendar and Our Interviews, have been focused on personal and local events, while in the 2000s, materials on public administration, education, healthcare, and youth activities prevail. In the editions of the 2010s, the focus has been shifted towards issues of charity, spirituality, and the relevant social topics. Attention is also paid to administrative and economic processes, covering entrepreneurial activities, legislative changes, and infrastructure projects. Special emphasis is placed on the press’s significance in reflecting the cultural life and festive traditions of the town. The newspapers have published materials on cultural events, including festivals, choral academies, exhibitions, and sports events as tools for local identity formation. The everyday challenges, such as infrastructure and utility issues, those have caused tension among residents, are highlighted in the editions. Examples of coverage the social injustices, such as discrepancies in tariffs and disorder in residential areas are considered. The importance of local press as a «chronicle» of everyday life, which not only documents significant events but also forms public opinion, fosters social cohesion, and preserves cultural heritage, is emphasized in the study. Newspaper published works inform the population about current events as well as contribute to the formation of value orientations, highlighting the community’s problems and achievements. Owing to its structure and thematic diversity, the local periodicals have become a vital tool in forming historical memory, preserving local identity, and adapting the community to contemporary social changes.

This article draws on in-depth ethnographic research with the Layene (People of God), a little-studied Sufi Muslim community based in Dakar, the present-day Senegalese capital. My analysis of everyday and ritual performances serves as a way to understand what it means to be Layene, a community guided by particular (re)interpretations of equality, community ethics, and religious practice and discourse. I focus primarily on how the Layene reinterpret the Wolof concept of teraanga (hospitality/prestation) as constituting a kind of ‘radical sharedness’, which is viewed as the ethical foundation of the Layene faith. My study uses ethnographic research with Layene community members, discourse analysis of written and spoken Layene sermons and sikr (invocations of God), and content from Layene community websites to examine how specific ritual performances bring about religious communion as well as social change.

The transnational turn in migrant studies emphasizes complexities in migration, partly related to the agency that migrants may exercise. Chapter 44 in the biblical Book of Jeremiah holds a story of migration that is peculiarly insensitive to such aspects: religious practices performed by a local community are condemned, and so are they. Through a series of analytical steps—reflection on historical conditions of migration at the time, on the historical value of the biblical sources, on a cognitive theory of mimesis in narrative, and on praxeological analysis—this study tries to regain a view of migratory complexity and migrants’ agency in that story. The reading uncovers how migrants were “doing community” through their religious practices and through their dispute with the prophet. The story reflects an enduring pattern of struggle between local communities and trans-local forces. It also reflects change in traditional communal patterns due to social changes brought about by migration.

This ethnographic study examines deaf people’s experience of the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Confession in two Catholic schools for deaf children in the Republic of Ireland from 1950 to 1990. The article fills a gap in Catholic deaf education literature that fails to uncover the experiences of deaf children. It provides space for their storied lives based on a total of 10 loosely structured individual interviews conducted with a purposeful sample of deaf adult participants who were past pupils of Catholic schools. Using ethnographic data, the study illuminates the views of participants concerning the learning obstacles created by a school policy dominated by oralism which prohibited use of Irish Sign Language. The article uncovers children’s experiences of the Sacrament of Penance for disobeying classroom rules against signing. Participants found their schooling experiences exemplify notions of stigma and stereotyping. As children, their response was to either subvert or submit to their school’s policy and religious practice. The findings make a useful contribution to current debates on language issues pertaining to teaching, learning and communication in deaf education. This paper concludes that, although heavily stigmatised in the past, Irish Sign Language has an important role in cultivating equitable access to Religious Education.