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Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Folklife
... From a religious studies point of view, fieldwork on festivals has shown that the participants' experiences can take on religious -or at least religionesque (Heidl 2023d; Testa 2023a) -characteristics, 2 and that these events function as a substitute or complement to religion, a collection point for those who identify as spiritual, but not religious, believing without belonging (Burge 2021;Casanova 2020;Erlandson 2000;Fuller 2001;Mercadante 2014) and other similar categories, and are defining parts of lived (Ammerman 2021;McGuire 2008) or vernacular (Primiano 1995) forms of religion. ...
... The Lélek festival provided a setting where the religious aspect was obvious: the participants belonged to Christian denominations, and the main purpose of the event was to celebrate the Holy Spirit. In this setting, the event religion dimensions do not show whether the religious/religionesque aspects are present, but rather in what these aspects are manifested and how their religion is lived (Primiano 1995). ...
The event religion framework has been developed to enable the study of event experience using the tools of sociology, ethnography and religious studies, independently of the religious affiliation of the event participants or the events themselves. It examines event experience along four dimensions: spatiotemporality, symbols, community, and inward experience. This paper examines the event religion dimensions at a Catholic and a rock-metal music event in Hungary in order to draw attention to similarities and differences in participant experiences at a religious and a non-religious festival.
... This has affected both their ritual and non-ritual lives over the course of the past century. Some of these ways have recently been studied in my own doctoral dissertation (see Czimbalmos 2021a), which utilised the framework of vernacular religion (see Primiano 1995;Bowman 2004;Bowman/Valk 2012) to analyse the practices and traditions of intermarried congregants. As the study pointed out, the interplay between the three main aspects of vernacular religion, between the "official", "folk", and "individual" (Bowman 2004: 6), were present at all levels of congregational practice. ...
... Among them, there were fifty-four women, and forty-seven men. The interview structure was designed in accordance with the framework for vernacular religion (see Primiano 1995;Bowman 2004;Bowman/Valk 2012). As a result, most interviews were centred around topics such as the congregations' minhagim 7 , or those related to dietary habits, family lives, conversions, and relations with society in general. ...
... Валк се ослања на концепт вернакуларне религије који је деведесетих година 20. века разрадио Леонард Примијано (Leonard Primiano) да би веровање сагледао у контексту који је шири од уобичајеног оквира "народне религије" (не одбацујући, притом, концепт народне религије) (Primiano 1995). Овакав приступ предложен је као могућ за фолклористичко проучавање религије (укључујући савремене алтернативне форме) и приближавање фолклористике другим дисциплинама, попут религиологије и антропологије (уз претходно наведене радове в. и : Valk 2014;. ...
... Some scholars argue that music plays a key role in attracting many Roma to Pentecostal worship (Thurfjell 2009: 179-191). At the same time, research on this topic is particularly important because we are dealing with a segment of Roma culture with a vibrant popular religiosity (Primiano 1995) and a rich musical culture that is not only in a constant state of dynamic change, thus allowing us to cap- ture Roma creativity, but also because religious songs help us to understand the collective wounded identity of the marginalized, colonized Roma population (Máté-Tóth 2019). The transformation of Roma popular religiosity and musical culture is taking place right under our noses. ...
In this article, we investigate Romani musicians and Romani religious musicking, a previously under-researched facet of Roma musicking. We detail the emergence of Romani religious music and its distinctive features, explore its evolution over the past fifty years, and identify the earliest Roma religious musicians in Hungary. Furthermore, this study will highlight the significance of Romani religious music in the process of Romani conversion, the emergence of a Christian Romani collective identity, and the development of Romani relations and inculturation. In addition to historical sources and literature, our study draws on personal field experiences and interviews with Roma believers in Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal-Charismatic, and Free Christian congregations in Békés, Budapest, Szeged, Szendrőlád, Csatka, and Uszka.
... Dette passer godt i en spanskspråklig kontekst, da det spanske begrepet for folkereligion, eller folk religion, nettopp er religíon popular. Begrepet «folkereligion» er imidlertid blitt kritisert for å ta utgangspunkt i en ren form for religion, der folkereligionen fremstilles som avarter av denne (se for eksempel Primiano, 1995, som velger å bruke begrepet vernacular religion). Vi mener «folkereligion» likevel egner seg analytisk for å vise ulike former for hverdagsreligion som kan vaere åpne, lekne og i stadig endring, men samtidig stabile. ...
Football is a global popular cultural phenomenon. Due to the enormous interest football generates, the emotions that are lived out, the participation in common rituals and the worship of teams and individual players, football can be compared to religion. We use Argentina’s victory in the FIFA World Cup 2022 as a starting point and explore through empirical examples how the intense interest in football in Argentina and the worship of Maradona can be seen as a form of folk religion. Towards the end of the article, we discuss how the exploration of football and religion can be used didactically in religious education in Norway. Keywords: football, FIFA World Cup, folk religion, folk saints, cábala, Maradona
... We define this form as folk Spiritism, in the same way as folk religion. However, the notion of folk religion itself has been criticized for its opposition of high/low, elite/folk, after the article by Leonard Primiano (1995), where a new concept of vernacular religion has been offered (see Bowman and Valk 2012, pp. 1-19 for the possibility of its application in quite different contexts). ...
Examples of how Spiritism merged with local beliefs have been the subject of research in religious studies, ethnology, and folkloristics. Serbian Spiritism can also be viewed as such, but its history is an under-researched topic. We examine the syncretic product we will call ‘folk Spiritism’, being different from the ‘high Spiritism’ of elite and middle-class intellectuals. Folk Spiritism was part of a grassroots movement for Church reform in the first half of the 20th century. The difference between folk and high Spiritism is also confirmed in the emic perspective. Based on a closer reading of its texts, we can discern a better image of the dead and communication with them in the practice of folk Spiritism. We conclude that the difference between the traditional and Spiritist image of the dead is that the former causes fear, while the later brings comfort; folk Spiritism gave preference to communication with heavenly forces (God, Christ, Holy Mother, angels, saints) while retaining the traditional view of the dead.
... Yet rather than apply a folklife approach to lived religion that was associated with the historical ethnological work of Don Yoder (1990), Primiano (1995) chose to use the modifier vernacular that made its analytical meaning more nebulous, and as I have argued, actually exacerbated the problems he intended to resolve (Bronner 2022b). I told him so, but his defense was that its "fuzziness" -what Valk calls instrumentality -invited reflection on belief practices that were non-institutionalized without fixing a method, approach, or analytical outcome. ...
Continuing a dialogue with Ülo Valk on the value of the etic term vernacular in folk-loristic scholarship, this essay responds to his claim that despite the stigma of the word’s past usage and its rejection by other fields it holds promise for folkloristics because of its conceptual flexibility, which he finds is especially conducive to the study of belief and religious practices. Pointing out that flexibility – or “fuzziness” to quote other critics – suggests imprecision, residualism, hierarchy, and lack of analytical instrumentality, this essay contends that use of vernacular reveals more about its users than the groups and practices it purports to describe. Recounting the intellectual history of the term and its adoption in folkloristic circles as well as the author’s own scholarship, this essay maintains that the term has limited, if any, use in folkloristics and ethnology because of its negative assumptions and “fuzzy” logic. It can be reflexively analyzed, however, to understand scholars’ perceptions of cultural phenomena and their conflicts with cognitive categories of practice and belief enacted by cultural participants.
... Vēsturiski Latvijas teritorija bijusi sadalīta katolicisma un luterisma ietekmju zonās, kur, jo īpaši Latgalē, nozīmīga tautas reliģijas un tautas medicīnas tradīcijas veidojoša sastāvdaļa bija (ir) baznīcas svēto un relikviju kults(Lielbārdis 2014: 83-84). Folkloras un reliģiju pētniece Mariona Bovmane(Bowman, 1955), lai iegūtu plašāku izpratni par reliģiju, kādu patiesībā pieredz sabiedrība, rosina pētniecībā skatīt trīs savstarpēji saistītus komponentus -oficiālā reliģija, tautas (folk) reliģija un individuālā reliģiskā pieredze un interpretācija(Bowman, Valk 2014: 4), kas savukārt daļēji sasaucas ar vernakulārās reliģijas konceptu(Primiano 1995). 10 Dievturība ir nacionālromantisma ideju ietekmē Latvijā 20. gs. ...
... In his seminal 1995 article, he called for attention to vernacular Buddhist traditions and to local production, reminding us that this is how conditions are created for the preservation of the idealized world of texts. In this respect, his approach fits the broader theoretical focus of Leonard N. Primiano (1995), who sees all forms of religious life, including the institutionalized and textual ones, as vernacularized, localized, and contextual expressions. ...
... Practices of contemporary religiosity that are lived and performed in the realm of the quotidian, which are more often than not also connected with institutionalized religions, are popularly placed analytically under the concept of "vernacular religion" (Primiano 1995;Bowman and Valk 2012;Valk and Bowman 2022) and "lived religion" (McGuire 2008). In those forms of vernacular religiosity as it is lived through everyday practice, creative amalgamations often occur between institutionalized religions, such as Christianity, and New Age or holistic forms of spirituality (see, for example, Roussou 2021;Cornejo Valle 2013;Palmisano and Pannofino 2017). ...
From the socio-economic and political crisis in southern Europe during the last few decades, to the more recent global healthcare crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, contemporary societies have faced and are still under the impact of considerable sociocultural change [...]
... First, we refer to the re-appropriation of autochthonous religious representations and practices that had existed and/or are held to have existed before the modernisation of these countries. These can be established vernacular traditions (Bowman and Valk 2012;Primiano 1995), for instance, mumming, Carnival, and carnivalesque festivities, or other folkloric forms bearing evident religious connotations, such as Advent and pre-Christmas ceremonies, or springtime celebrations. A second set of phenomena are the new religious movements and other recently invented or re-invented practices, such as diverse strands of contemporary Paganism and Neo-shamanism. ...
... The role of local traditions in the study of alternative spirituality has long been noticed by historians, archaeologists, scholars of religion and other disciplines: as Juliette Wood (2011) states, they "have increasingly realised that folklore and cultural tradition are necessary ingredients in comprehending 'the big picture' in a variety of contexts." In folklore studies, this research problem is often addressed from the perspective of vernacular religion (Bowman, 2011(Bowman, , 2014Bowman, Sutcliffe, 2000;Primiano, 1995;Roussou, 2021;Valk, 2008). However, alternative spirituality includes healing practices that people do not perceive as religious. ...
The paper examines how Slovak traditional concepts related to magical healing are used in a group around an urban shaman living in Bratislava (Slovakia). It is argued that practitioners’ stories about spiritual healing are based on narrative templates which could be identified in Slovak traditional folk stories. It is concluded that folk tradition plays an important role in adapting alternative spirituality to local conditions because it contributes to better remembrance of spiritual concepts.
... However, it is complicated to tell which one involves the smaller burden of colonialism, ethnocentrism, or "primitivism, classism, and marginalization", as Simon Bronner (2022) claims regarding the recent rise in application of the concept 'vernacular' in folkloristics. Curiously enough, several prominent scholars propose that the 'vernacular' concept is a cure for scholarly pains in approaching people's worldview and designates personal spiritual self-expression, engagement and understanding (see Primiano 1995;2012;Bowman and Valk 2012;Valk 2023). Marion Bowman (2014: 101) defines this approach as connected to an attempt to comprehend "how one would act in the world were one to be operating within a particular worldview". ...
... 3. The term "vernacular" is gaining traction in many areas of study to replace other terms, such as "folk" or "local." See Primiano (1995). Novetzke uses it specifically for Maharashtrian culture. ...
Conversations around rites of possession and object animation within the Hindu performative sphere have a long history of being relegated to a marginalized space unworthy of academic investigation. Using the concept of dramaturgy popularized by Erving Goffman, this article shifts the gaze from object animation and spirit possession to its social performance, in which a temporary egalitarian social scheme is exhibited. In exploring the case of a specific possession rite locally called taraṅga devatā, which is practiced along the west coast of India, this article introduces the transformation of the deities housed in local shrines as entities capable of movement and communication known as taraṅga. In so doing, I reassess some local Hindu religious practices that were eschewed in the past.
... В заключение следует сказать о продуктивности рассмотрения индивидуального уровня деятельности Церкви в аспекте формирования вернакулярной (частной, народной низовой) религии -религии, погруженной в повседневность, прожива-емой каждым индивидом в конкретных географических и культурных контекстах (Primiano 1995). Изучение индивидуально-личностных факторов вскрывает конкретные механизмы, которые обусловили «низовые» способы восприятия христианского вероучения и формирования религиозных верований, определявших весь строй крестьянской жизни. ...
В отечественной науке существует постоянный интерес к празднично-игровой культуре русского народа, к процессам ее сложения и причинам вариативности и локальности. Кроме очевидных факторов, определяющих облик культуры (географического, социально-экономического, политического), существуют и скрытые, которые оказывают на нее не менее важное влияние. В статье на основе опубликованных, архивных, а также полевых материалов автора рассматривается трансформация празднично-игровой культуры русских в результате рецепции христианского вероучения, при этом акцент делается на описании индивидуально-личностных факторов и оценке их роли в появлении новых культурных явлений и форм. Имеющийся корпус источников позволяет детально реконструировать этот процесс в имперский период, когда в крестьянском сознании уже несколько веков доминировало православное мировосприятие и мировоззрение. Эту эпоху можно расценивать как особый, более продвинутый по сравнению с предыдущим временем этап рецепции, содержанием которого было не первоначальное ознакомление с христианской религией, а уже более глубокое ее освоение и выстраивание на этой основе повседневной жизни. В рамках микроисторического подхода анализируется деятельность многочисленной социальной группы — сельского духовенства, которое ближе всех стояло к крестьянству и могло непосредственно воздействовать на сознание большинства населения страны, формируя его мировоззрение. Автор рассматривает методы воздействия деятелей Церкви, благодаря которым христианские постулаты и регламентации поведения были восприняты на «низовом» уровне и привели к трансформациям в сфере празднично-игровой культуры. Таким образом, анализ индивидуальной деятельности и описание конкретных событий повседневной и праздничной жизни выводит на понимание макроисторических процессов.
... sanctioned statues, monuments, publicly commissioned murals, etc. (Chackal 2016, 360;Arnold 2019). Creative comprises both the vernacular processes of folklore as understood through Ben-Amos's artistic communication in small groups (1971) and the institutionally-recognised creative processes of those trained in the 'fine' arts, while recognising the ambiguity and nuances of terms like vernacular and institutional (Primiano 1995;Howard 2008). Public-facing means visible in a public space, whether the creation is widely intelligible or not. ...
Through a methodology of ethnographic walking and photographic documentation this article considers and redefines street art within the contexts of the disciplines of Ethnology and Folklore. By considering wide-ranging Scottish examples of public-facing interventions through the concepts of temporality, placement and location, and modification and defacement, this article contributes to a wider scholarly and general discussion on the role and importance of street art in our everyday lives. It argues for the significance and usefulness of these conceptual frameworks, which not only link street art in Scotland to street art around the world, but also reveal the common hybrid physical and online nature of much street art. The examples included of public interventions are almost all connected through the theme of resistance, whether personal, local, national, or international. Examples explored relate to the Scottish Independence Referendum, anti-gentrification campaigning, the Covid-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, trans rights activism, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Bu çalışmada, son on yılda din sosyolojisi alanında hangi yeni konu ve yöntemlerin ön plana çıktığı ve bunların toplumsal dinamikleri nasıl yansıttığı sorusuna cevap aranacaktır. Son on yılda küreselleşmenin getirdiği hızlı değişimler, iletişim araçlarındaki gelişmeler, bilgi alanındaki değişimler ve yapay zekânın yükselişi, toplum ve din arasındaki ilişkiyi önemli ölçüde etkilemektedir. Bu değişimlerin hızı, ortaya çıkardığı toplumsal etkilerin izlenmesinde zorluklar yaratmaktadır. Bu sebeple din sosyolojisinde hangi konuların ön plana çıkmaya başladığı özellikle genç araştırmacılar için önemli bir sorundur. Bu çalışmada yapay zekâ tabanlı Scite atıf veritabanı kullanılarak, son on yılda din sosyolojisinde Avrupa ve Kuzey Amerika’da İngilizce üretilen çalışmalar listelenmiş ve daha önce ele alınmamış ancak sıkça tekrar eden konular kodlanmıştır. Sonuç olarak, son on yılda dört ana kategorinin ön plana çıktığı tespit edilmiştir: a) Dijital din, b) yaşanan din, c) etnisite ve göç, d) son olarak ise dini aidiyetsizlik (din dışılık). Her kategorinin konuları, dikkatle seçilmiş makaleler aracılığıyla incelenmiş ve din sosyolojisinde yeni araştırmacılar için teorik çerçeveler ve uygulamalı araştırmalara önemli katkılar sağlanması amaçlanmıştır. Bu dört tema, çağdaş toplumda farklılaşan dini deneyimler ve dini kimliğin dönüşümüne odaklanmaktadır. “Dijital Din”, dini bireyler ile dijital medya arasındaki etkileşimi incelemekte, özellikle COVID-19 pandemisi sırasında çevrimiçi dini hizmetlere geçişin sağladığı imkanlar ve zorlukları vurgulamaktadır. Bu tema, teknolojinin yeni dini ifade biçimlerini ve dijital cemaatleşme yollarını nasıl ürettiğini, aynı zamanda dini otorite ve otantiklik konularını nasıl sorguladığını analiz etmektedir. “Yaşanan Din” kişisel ve toplumsal dini yaşamın yönlerine odaklanmakta, bireylerin dini inançları günlük rutinlerine nasıl entegre ettiğini ve kurumsal bağlamlar dışındaki dini kimliğin akışkanlığını vurgulamaktadır. “Etnisite ve Göç” teması, ırk, din ve beyaz ayrıcalığın kesiştiği noktaları araştırmakta, dini kimliğin ırksal dinamiklerle nasıl şekillendiğini ve dini topluluklar içindeki marjinal grupların karşılaştığı sistemik zorlukları incelemektedir. Son olarak, “Din Dışılık” sekülerizmin bir sonraki aşamasına işaret etmekte, dini bağlantısızlığın arkasındaki nedenleri ve bunun toplumsal sonuçlarını araştırmakta, seküler kimliklerin inşası ve sürdürülmesi ile dini kurumların ve kamu politikalarının büyüyen sekülerizme tepkilerini ele almaktadır. Bu temalar, modern dünyada din ve maneviyatın gelişen manzarasını kapsamlı bir şekilde anlamamıza yardımcı olmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın bulguları, din sosyolojisinin geleneksel temalardan uzaklaşıp post-modern çağın getirdiği mikro meseleler üzerine yöneldiğini göstermektedir. Sonuç olarak araştırma, din sosyolojisinin, devam eden zorluklar ve eleştirilere rağmen, yeni araştırma alanlarını keşfetme konusundaki direncini ve uyum yeteneğini vurgulamaktadır. Bununla birlikte geleneksel metodolojilerin hâlâ baskın olduğunu; çağdaş sosyal yapının karmaşık ve akışkan doğasını daha iyi anlamak için yeni araçların ve yöntemlerin çalışmalara dahil edilmesi gerektiğini öne sürmektedir. Bu çalışma, din sosyolojisi alanında gelecekteki teorik ve uygulamalı araştırmalar için bir temel sunmakta, ilgili alanlarda araştırmacılar, öğrenciler ve akademisyenler için değerli bilgiler sağlamaktadır. Din sosyolojisindeki son eğilimleri ve temaları analiz etmeye yönelik kapsamlı yaklaşım, alanın dinamik ve gelişen doğasını vurgulamaktadır.
This article explores the language negotiations among a group of Norwegian Christian Charismatic disaffiliates from a Facebook community called “The Journey” (no. “Reisen”). The analysis is based on 24 in-depth interviews and examines specific language practices of the disaffiliates, which I call translation-work. Translation-work involves substituting the religious meaning of Christian Charismatic concepts with secular meaning, allowing the term to remain in the disaffiliates’ vocabulary. Such language negotiations also reframe Charismatic experiences with secular words and actively omit relevant disaffiliation terms and concepts used in American discourse on disaffiliation. The Norwegian informants are particularly skeptical of victim-oriented terms even though they adequately fit such descriptions. The article discusses these omissions and how and why the informants engage in translation-work. It further suggests that established scholarly and popular disaffiliation terms do not precisely capture the nuances of non/religious language in this material. The article contributes to the field by providing thick descriptions of the informants’ negotiations and suggesting translation-work as a conceptualization, which gives us new sociological understandings of liminal non/religious language and experiences.
This article * examines the significance and impact of vernacular symbols with national and ritualistic importance, focusing on their roles in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the Tibetan crisis. The study asserts that the effectiveness of these symbols in mobilising public sentiment depends on their ability to elicit a diverse range of emotions. It analyses symbols that have garnered global attention, particularly following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and China’s occupation of Tibet in 1959.
The methodology combines fieldwork and interviews with Tibetan communities in Kalimpong near Darjeeling (West Bengal), Belakhuppi (South India), and Sikkim, along with Ukrainians residing in Estonia. By utilising both traditional ethnographic approaches and netnography (Kozinets 2015), the study investigates trends and emotional impacts through social media, incorporating digital tools for interviews.
The research explores the transformation of religious and cultural symbols into instruments for constructing national identity amid geopolitical conflicts. It examines how these symbols validate personal and collective identities during national crises, offering insights into their role in affirming one’s identity as it relates to a lost or threatened nation.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9058-1464 | i_kyzlasova@iea.ras.ru | старший научный сотрудник отдела русского народа | Институт этнологии и антропологии РАН (Ленинский пр. 32а, Москва, 119991, Россия) Елена Геннадьевна Чеснокова | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9815-3042 | chesnokova.eg33@gmail.com | независимый исследователь (Владимир, Россия) Ключевые слова вернакуляр, самодеятельные музеи, вернакулярные музеи, народная музеефикация, низовые инициативы, индивидуальная практика музеестроительства Аннотация Статья посвящена рассмотрению использования термина вернакулярный в различных областях гуманитаристики и продуктивности его употребления как дополнительного способа описания различных типов самодеятельных музеев в современном обществе. Анализ опубликованных работ показал, что независимо от дисциплинарной перспекти-вы выделяются три ключевые черты этого понятия. Первая-вернакулярное связывает-ся с локальностью, т.е. территориальная локальность соотносится с индивидуальной деятельностью. Вторая черта характеризуется через противопоставление официальным социальным институтам, поэтому вернакулярное предполагает такие свойства, как не-формальность, независимость и нерегламентированность. И третья особенность со-стоит в большой значимости творческого компонента, благодаря которому происходит адаптация глобального и институционального к индивидуальному восприятию мира. Музеи рассматриваются в рамках антропоцентрического подхода как низовые иници-ативы, направленные на репрезентацию индивидуальных интересов, а также как один из способов самоактуализации. Несмотря на то, что вернакулярный музей является, по сути, индивидуальной практикой, он относится к тем музейным пространствам, в которых представлены как личные истории проживания тех или иных событий, так и нарративные шаблоны коллективной памяти.
The article deals with theoretical approaches to the analysis of anthropological aspects of religious places of memory associated with the veneration of Christian saints. This form of religious practice is often a kind of refraction of a dogmatically formalized official religious system, passed through the prism of traditional beliefs, sometimes of archaic origin, in which the objects of worship are both officially fixed material objects (icons, sometimes sculptural images of saints or Mother-of-God, worship crosses), and unofficial locally revered shrines, including springs, stones, trees, and even landscapes. The author analyzes essentialist and non-essentialist theories used to interpret local cults of saints associated with the veneration of natural objects: the theory of dual faith (dvoeverie) and “Orthodox animism”, folk religion, lived religion, vernacular religion, material religion. The most successful methodological approach to explain the historical and cultural survival of religious places of memory, according to the author, is the actor-network theory of B. Latour. Being a non-essentialist approach, the actor-network theory does not distinguish between different types of actors: people, natural objects, and supernatural actors. Natural objects create a network between pilgrims and supernatural actors, which manifests itself in direct worship practices, an important element of which are appropriate votive offerings. Natural actors carry out the function of mediation between the worlds, connecting a person with a supernatural actor who is constantly invisibly present in a sacred place, and thus a network is built that has an important psychological significance for believers, thereby determining the social significance of religious places of memory.
The article is based on field material collected in Mednogorsk (Orenburg region) in December 2021. It is dedicated to the study of the interactions between the religious and cultural landscapes of the city. A distinctive feature of industrial Mednogorsk, founded during the era of industrialization, is its “church history” of the Soviet era. An constant element of this history was the life of the parish, which since 1943 took place in a prayer house later converted into the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The decades-long existence of the so-called “old St. Nicholas Church” in the city havs led to the enrichment and complication of the religious landscape, which includes hidden public practices of faith protection and places of prayer. The latter include an episode of collective protection of the church from destruction in 1961 and the book by Vera Popova, who became recognized in the city as the “historian of the temple” from among the oldest parishioners. The article provides a comparative analysis of the oral and written versions of the history of St. Nicholas Church.
In 2007, the new Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was consecrated in Mednogorsk. The authors analyze the distribution of functions between the two St. Nicholas churches in the small town in the post-Soviet period. The conclusion is drawn about the interpenetration of the historical, cultural and religious heritage of the city, which originated as a settlement near a copper-sulfur plant. Additionally, it is suggested that the church component of Mednogorsk’s history allows for the interpretation of its Soviet period as an alternative version of Soviet industrialization in a small factory town.
Katri Ratia, Alternative Spirituality, Counterculture, and European Rainbow Gatherings: Pachamama, I’m Coming Home (Abingdon: Taylor & Francis, 2023), 294pp., £35.09 (ebk), ISBN: 978-1-003-33343-2
This article examines the idea of “vernacular museums” as it was put forth by Irina Kyzlasova and Elena Chesnokova in an earlier issue of the journal. In response to the authors’ idea, I aim to further develop the line of argumentation, proposing to broaden the scope of analysis for this phenomenon. The article explores the issues surrounding the application of the term “vernacular museum.” These obstacles include the presence of previous iterations of such museums, the inherent contradictions within the categorization of museums’ diversity, and the challenges associated with conceptualizing vernaculars as a significant Other of the officially recognized museum models. The article presents a novel approach to examining modern museum activities, suggesting that they could be placed alongside broader grassroots commemoration activities and memorial activism.
There are less than 1300 Jews living in Finland who are members in the two officially Orthodox Jewish communities in Helsinki and in Turku. After the Civil Marriage Act was put in effect by the Finnish Parliament in 1917 the number of intermarriages between Jews and non-Jews started rising in the communities. Most of these marriages were officiated between Jewish men and non-Jewish women. In the beginning, the non-Jewish spouses kept their respective religious affiliations, but in many cases, their halachically non-Jewish children converted to Judaism. In the 1970s, adulthood conversions to Judaism became far more frequent in the communities—especially in the Jewish Community of Helsinki. Today, most of these individuals and their families concerned are still active members of the Jewish congregation. The high number of intermarriages and the conversions to Judaism have had a crucial impact on the development of the religious customs of local Jewry. Through the analysis of archival sources and new ethnographic material derived from semi-structured qualitative interviews, this case study investigates how intermarriages formed the traditions and habits in the families and in the communities. By relating the topic of intermarriage to the question of conversion, the study sheds light on institutional changes within the Jewish Community of Helsinki, and analyzes how women, who converted to Judaism in 1977, articulate and perform their religious practices, identities, and agencies when consciously aiming at building Jewish families.
The article delves into the concept of miracles from the perspective of the Catholic Church, tracing the evolution of human consciousness from fear to awe to curiosity, leading to the phenomena of mythologization, religious experiences, philosophical explanations, and rational understanding of everyday events through science and technology. The relevance of the study is due to the great influence and role of the Catholic Church in the modern world. Miracles as one of the key phenomena related to Catholic values are examined. By means of categorial and discourse analyses, along with the case study method, the work highlights the theological interpretation of miracles, distinguishing between official Christian doctrines and vernacular religious practices. It explores the process of institutionalization of religion and the significance of miracles within the context of Catholicism, emphasizing their role as divine revelations and signs of the supernatural. The article discusses the theological views on miracles of such thinkers as Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas, underscoring how miracles attest to faith and the resurrection. Contemporary examples of miracles recognized by the Catholic Church, such as those at Lourdes and involving figures like St. Padre Pio and Carlo Acutis are outlined. The process of canonization and the phenomenon of stigmata are described. The discussion extends to the philosophical debates on miracles, contrasting rationalistic criticisms from figures like David Hume and Baruch Spinoza with the religious significance attributed to miraculous events. The article also critiques the positivist perspective that subjugates religion to reason and science, emphasizing the enduring nature of miracles in religious discourse despite scientific advancements. In conclusion, the study advocates for a reconnection with the miraculous, religious, and metaphysical realms, positing that embracing mystery and awe can imbue life with meaning, wonder, and purpose, countering the secularization thesis that diminishes the role of miracles and spirituality in the modern world.
This article, based on field-based research conducted between 2014-2020, examines the lives and work of three healers practicing and teaching shamanism in NorthEast Scotland. The article aims to situate contemporary "western" healers within wider academic debates about shamanism as part of a dynamic cultural processes and to compare and contrast them with "traditional" shamanic practitioners. The article also examines whether these healers constitute a wider regional Scottish shamanic tradition, similar to that of "non-western" traditional shaman-istic cultures, or whether these are still emerging and autonomous phenomena.
The ritualised commemoration of the deceased belongs to the most common forms of communication with the dead. The meaning that people ascribe to a religious commemoration ritual is determined by a concrete religious doctrine, although it can be influenced by a broader cultural tradition. However, in the context of alternative spiritual currents, there can be many possible interpretations of communication with the dead, as there is no “official” doctrine supported by established institutions. In addition, alternative spirituality is marked by the emphasis on individuality, which results in the predominance of solitary practice. Yet, in various contexts, the tension between individuality and community can be manifested in different forms of ritualised behaviour, ranging from strictly private performances to prescribed group rituals. The paper addresses different levels of individual and collective practice in the context of alternative spirituality in Slovakia, a post-socialist country with a predominantly Christian, mostly Catholic, population. It makes use of the theoretical tools of Mary Douglas’ theory relating to the connection between cosmological beliefs and particular forms of social life. Rituals and ritualised behaviour are considered in the case of the triduum of All Saints’ Eve, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day. The results of ethnographic research on spiritual circles operating in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, have shown that these holidays are perceived and practiced differently by people with different religious or spiritual affiliation. The individual interpretation and the degree of associated ritualised behaviour depend on personal background, as well as the social organisation of a circle to which a practitioner belongs.
This paper explores the experiential reality surrounding the
Divine Liturgy, a Byzantine rite in Orthodox Christianity that has
remained central to Eastern practice globally since Late
Antiquity. The article draws on multi-sited ethnography in the
glocal context of the Orthodox Church of Finland (OCF), a
national church of minority and a site of multicultural
interaction. Our analysis shows participants articulate their
experiences with the Liturgy in an epistemology of interiority by
which (1) they constantly, if unevenly, and agentically engage
with the Liturgy in a form of individual, vernacular artistry. This
interiority is (2) both sensorial and interpretative, and (3)
ambivalently grounded in motifs of being “at home” and, at the
same time, “on a journey.” That is, participants from different
backgrounds make a connection to the Liturgy both as a
spiritual and a literal home, relating to different elements—
Finnish, Karelian, Byzantine, and Church Slavonic—in its
ritualistic aesthetics. At the same time, Liturgy emerges as a
perpetual journey of new openings and glimpses, informed by
past experiences and life trajectories, and participants relate to
these two aspects simultaneously.
Full-text available at:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IPCSHG2B2Q43ZHJJUQ4G/full?target=10.1080/17432200.2024.2325315
The article considers the use of the term vernacular in various fields of humanities and the effectiveness of its utilization as an additional way of describing various types of amateur museums in modern society. An analysis of published works has shown that, regardless of the disciplinary perspective, three key features of this concept stand out. The first feature implies that vernacular is associated with locality, i.e. territorial locality correlates with individual activity. The second feature is characterized through opposition to official social institutions; therefore, vernacular presupposes properties such as informality, independence, and lack of regulation. Finally, the third feature is the great importance of the creative component, due to which the global and institutional are adapted to the individual perception of the world. Museums are considered within the anthropocentric approach as grassroots initiatives aimed at representing individual interests, as well as one of the ways of self-actualization. Despite the fact that the vernacular museum is essentially an individual practice, it refers to those museum spaces in which both the personal stories of living certain events and the narrative patterns of collective memory are presented.
Contemporary thought typically places a strong emphasis on the exclusive and competitive nature of Abrahamic monotheisms. This instinct is certainly borne out by the histories of religious wars, theological polemic, and social exclusion involving Jews, Christians, and Muslims. But there is also another side to the Abrahamic coin. Even in the midst of communal rivalry, Jews, Christians, and Muslim practitioners have frequently turned to each other to think through religious concepts, elucidate sacred history, and enrich their ritual practices. Scholarship often describes these interactions between the Abrahamic monotheisms using metaphors of exchange between individuals-as if one tradition might borrow a theological idea from another in the same way that a neighbor might borrow a recipe. This Element proposes that there are deeper forms of entanglement at work in these historical moments.
The article, based on field materials, examines the transformation of the worldview of the Buryats of the Eastern Sayan region under the influence of Buddhism. The relevance of the study comes from the need to clarify the value matrices of the traditional society of this region nowadays. The purpose of the study is to identify the key features of the interaction of traditional rituals with later beliefs among the bearers of these values. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to solve several problems: modern scientific ideas about the influence of Buddhism on traditional beliefs were systematized; the specific relationships of Buddhism, traditional shamanism and beliefs are highlighted; the dominant values of Buddhism reinterpreting the heritage of religious practices combined with it are clarified. Further, based on the analysis of field research, the most significant differences in the interpretations of such reinterpreted values were revealed, distinguishing them from traditional Buddhism. Using examples of existing customs, the modern development of the process of integration of the Buddhist worldview into the already existing ritual culture of the Sayan Buryats is traced. The research methodology includes comparative historical and religious studies and hermeneutical approaches. The field study used the method of interview. As a result, the role of Buddhism was confirmed as a way of adaptively rethinking the heritage of traditional culture in light of the modern crisis of values, associated, among other things, with the forgetting of traditions, consumer attitudes towards the environment, nature, society and even loved ones. Turning to Buddhism in the Eastern Sayan region today, as in the past, is becoming one of the ways to overcome such negative phenomena. Buddhism in the region not only absorbed beliefs that existed at different stages of the history of ethnic Buryatia, but also adapted them to its religious practice. A Buddhist worldview of this type corresponds to the concepts of vernacular religion accepted in modern religious studies. Forming a syncretical holistic picture of the world that corresponds to local conditions and the historical period, vernacular Buddhism defines a wide range of existing values that ideologically and practically incorporate the ritual culture that has developed over centuries.
This article examines some of the changing forms of religion in contemporary Hungary, with a focus on a case study conducted at a mindfulness and lifestyle festival called Everness. The emerging need for an alternative kind of spirituality supplementing or opposed to traditional forms of religion has generated a new conceptual approach that I call event religion. In inductive empirical research, I used event religion to describe and interpret the participant experience in event-based settings through four dimensions: spatiotemporality, symbols, community, and inward experience. I show some characteristics of contemporary changing religiosity and spirituality through the examination of the four dimensions of experience.
This article examines how the patronage of tumuli, belief in sacred geography, the institution of meditation halls, and the practice of mantra at these halls converged in Tamil Nadu at the turn of the 19th century to facilitate a pan-sectarian Tamil “consensus” on yoga in the literature of Sri Sabhapati Swami (Capāpati Cuvāmikaḷ, b. 1828). The article begins by analyzing the phenomenon of tumuli (Tamil jīva-camāti) among Sabhapati’s gurus in the line of Kumara Devar (Kumāratēvar), as well as his own students. It then shows how such a phenomenon was intertwined with the mythology of Agastya and the Tamil Siddhas via Sabhapati’s other guru line. Consideration is also given to the role of mantra in these tumuli and their accompanying “Meditation Halls” (maṭālayams). The article concludes by claiming that intersections between tumuli sites, yoga, and mantra warrant more attention given their ability to attract emotional investment and financial patronage from various levels of society.
Halk bilimi inceleme konularından biri de dindir. Halk bilimi çalışmalarının başlangıç dönemi olan on dokuzuncu yüzyılda din, asıl olarak, ilahiyat ve antropoloji/sosyoloji disiplinlerinin konusuydu. İlahiyat alanında çalışan bilim insanları için din incelemelerinin çerçevesi yazılı gelenek ve kurumsal yapılarla sınırlıydı. Antropoloji ise sözlü geleneğe sahip ve ilkel olarak nitelendirilen toplulukların dinsel geleneklerini incelemekteydi. Halk bilimi, bu iki disiplinin ilgi odağının dışında kalan insanların inançlarını inceleme konusu edinmişti. Bu çalışmalar, çoğunlukla, yazılı ve kurumsal dinsel geleneğin içerisinde yer edinen arkaik inançları tespit etmeyi amaçlamaktaydı. Bunun en önemli kısmını da halk inançları oluşturmuştur. Yirminci yüzyılın başında Alman rahip Paul Drews, kilisenin dinsel öğretisi ile, halkın dinsel yaşantısı arasındaki farkı vurgulayan bir kavram olarak halk dini kavramını önermiştir. Don Yoder’in 1970’li yıllardaki halk dini analizi ve tanımlama çabası önemli dönüm noktalarından birisini oluşturmuştur. Yoder’in halk dini ile ilgili önerileri konuyla ilgili tartışmaları sona erdirmemiştir. Bu tartışmalara ciddi bir katkı 1990’lı yılların başında Leonard Norman Primiano tarafından yapıldı. Leonard Norman Primiano, halk dini kavramının hem semantik olarak yetersiz olduğunu hem de konunun incelenmesinin yöntemsel yenilikleri gerekli kıldığını iddia etmiştir. Bu kapsamda halk dini kavramının yerine, anlam içeriği yargı yüklü olmayan ve yöntemsel ve kuramsal yenilikler sunduğunu iddia ettiği verneküler kavramını önermiştir. Bu incelemede halk dini kavramının geçirdiği anlam değişmeleri incelenecektir.
The article reflects on religion both as a concept and as a field of studies from a transcultural perspective, linking it to current developments in folkloristics. It sheds light on the methodology of vernacular religion, a concept introduced by Leonard N. Primiano in the 1990s, which gained momentum in the 21st century with attention shifting from the institutional and scriptural forms of religions to vernacular beliefs, narratives, and practices in daily life.
New religious movements are often described as bizarre and sinister. Direct acquaintance, however, often gives a different impression from media portrayals and even from some academic writing. After decades of undertaking fieldwork, the author George Chryssides discusses his experiences, as well as studies by other scholars, and the issues that fieldwork involves. How do one's personal beliefs and lifestyle impinge on field research? How involved should a participant–observer become? How should we assess what we are told by insiders and ex-members? What ethical problems does field research create? How should we engage in online fieldwork, arising from the increasing use of the Internet, accelerated by the Covid pandemic? These are among the issues which this Element explores, and which will be of interest both to field researchers and to those who read about the fieldwork of others.
Written as a response to professor Simon Bronner’s critical analysis of the concept vernacular and its uses, published in the Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics (2022), the article highlights the functionality of the term ‘vernacular’. It has become a folkloristic category, binding conceptual domains such as ‘folk’ and ‘institutional’, ‘folkloric’ and ‘authored’, ‘oral’ and ‘literary’, ‘belief’ and ‘knowledge’, which have often been set apart in former scholarship. The main focus of the article is on vernacular religion as a concept and methodology, introduced by Leonard N. Primiano in the 1990s, which opened up a new perspective in the study of religions. The article considers ‘vernacular’ as a flexible concept, instrumental in developing folkloristics in its trans-disciplinary dialogues. Projected on the history of folk-loristics as a multilingual field of studies with roots in multiple national, regional and ethnic traditions, vernacular as an outlook enables us to think of folklore as a transcultural concept and disconnect it from colonial legacies.
This article argues that the religious and social developments of seventeenth-century Jain communities in northern India can be characterized as vernacularization. This is a process in which religious expression turns towards the quotidian, the local and the practical, and is strongly intertwined with vernacular literature and art. The article makes its argument by discussing the Dharmapariksa-bhasa by the Digambara author Manohardas (seventeenth century). This so-far unstudied text is an Old Hindi version of Amitagati’s Sanskrit Dharmapariksa (eleventh century) which criticizes by means of comical narration Brahmanical myths and beliefs. Presenting selections from this text, the article will highlight the intricate ways by which Manohardas’s bhasa reframes the Dharmapariksa to express the complexity that is vernacular Jainism. This involves emphasizing the spiritual-mystical interpretation of Jainism that was in vogue, but also drawing attention to the religious praxis of Jains and their others. The transposition into the northern Indian vernacular idiom suggests the role literary language played in vernacularizing Jainism. The discussions in the article present a Jainism that, while reflecting on its own tradition, defines itself in terms of the everyday regional religious environment of northern India.
The conceptual network used in modern religious studies is being constantly updated and supplemented with new terms, while “classical” concepts are undergoing semantic shifts as well. This paper is focused on the history of the notions of lived religion and vernacular religion, which entered the scientific lexicon in the late 20th century. Both terms relate to the study of everyday life and its philosophical understanding and are based on extensive empirical research as well as anthropological data. The concepts of lived religion and vernacular religion were proposed by scholars as an alternative to the traditional and widespread binary schemes for describing religion, which contrast the high/low, elite/folk and institutionalized/non-institutionalized forms of religion. The genesis and spread of these concepts reflected the general trend, which consists in refraining from applying a uniform Western European model and denominational theological discourse to the variable phenomena of religious experience. The term lived religion, which originated in memoirs and biographical literature, characterized the personal experience of Christians, extending to the daily religious practices of various traditions. Vernacular religion goes back to the Latin word vernaculus, which had been used to describe something native, local, domestic and, later, to distinguish the local language from the official Latin. The term was proposed by philologists to solve religious problems of studying unorganized, spontaneous, everyday and individual forms of manifestation of religion. Currently, both terms are being successfully used, including in Russian scientific discourse, in religious studies on various phenomena of materialization, kitsch, gender and many other aspects of religion.
Church censing ritual — fumigation with incense or its substitutes — is widespread in folk culture. It plays a particularly important role in funeral and memorial rites, where the fumigation is usually carried out in order to ritually purify people, space and objects that have been in contact with the deceased. However, the significance of this ritual is not equal in different local ethnical traditions: in some communities, it is simply recommended, while in others it is of a prime importance. The accessibility of this ritual action for people also varies. In some traditions, only religious specialists (the priest and his assistants) can perform this ritual, in other traditions, anyone can do it. The article is concerned with vernacular forms of censing. The culture of Yurlians — Russians living in a different ethnic (Komi-Permyak) environment, and the culture of the northern (Kochevsky) Komi-Permyaks neighboring them, are among the traditions with a developed mythological semantics of censing. The main research data are materials collected during the fieldwork carried out in 2013–2017 and 2022 in the Northern Prikamye, in the Rus-sian-Komi-Permyak borderland. The study is based on the structural and functional analysis of the rituals. It has been revealed that the locations of censing in the structure of traditional funeral and memorial rites partially coin-cides with church prescriptions, however, vernacular fumigation with incense is of more intense character; around it, a kind of “mythology of censing” develops, and dialectal ritual terminology is formed. Сensing fulfills not only typi-cal cleansing and apotropaic functions, but it also acts as a way of mediation between the living and the dead — it “wakes up” the souls, invites them to a ritual meal, guarantees the availability of food, etc. Special folklore formulas addressed to beings-intermediaries between the living and the dead (angels, wind, etc.) provide the realization of this function. Individualized versions may arise from the ritual, which adapts to the new life realities.
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