Imagining Religious Communities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer B. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Religious Narrative ◽  
Narrative Performances

Based on ethnographic research with a transnational Hindu family and its social networks, this book examines the ways that middle-class Hindu communities are engaged actively in creating and maintaining their communities. Imagination as a social practice has been a crucial component of defining a transnational life in the moments between actual contact across borders, and the narratives community members tell are key components of communicating these social imaginaries. Narrative performances shape participants’ social realities in multiple ways: they define identities, they create connections between community members living on opposite sides of national borders, and they help create new homes amid increasing mobility. The narratives are religious and include both epic narratives, such as excerpts from the Rāmāyaṇ, and personal narratives with dharmic implications. The book argues that this Hindu community’s religious narrative performances significantly contribute to shaping their transnational lives. The analysis combines scholarly understandings of the ways that performances shape the contexts in which they are told, indigenous comprehension of the power that reciting certain narratives can have on those who hear them, and the theory that social imaginaries define new social realities through expressing the aspirations of communities.

On the Importance of Maṇḍalı̄s

2019 ◽  
pp. 9-32
Author(s):  
Jennifer B. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Economic Globalization ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Transnational Communities ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Religious Narrative ◽  
Narrative Performances ◽  
And Migration

This chapter weaves together the themes of imagination, religion, and migration. It argues that although economic globalization and technological advances in communication and transportation have provided a framework within which transnational lives are possible, the heart of developing transnational communities and identities lies in the new social imaginaries made viable by these frameworks but brought to life in religious narrative performances. The argument is supported by several sections that develop ideas about what it means to be transnational, the creativity generated by narrative performances and its connection to social imaginaries, and finally, an argument about what count as religious narratives in a transnational Hindu context.

scholarly journals Teungku Dayah Agency and Religious Social Capital on Drug Eradication in Aceh, Indonesia

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 210
Author(s):  
Nirzalin Nirzalin ◽  
Yogi Febriandi
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Religious School ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religious Social Capital

This article examines the success of religious social capital and the agency of teungku dayah (Islamic scholars who belong to traditional religious school) in the collective drug eradication movement in Ujong Pacu, Lhokseumawe-Aceh, Indonesia. The role of religious social capital in combating the drugs market in global drug policy has been less studied. This study provides a quite different view from most scholars who work for combating drug dealers by engaging participation of religious communities in rural society. The agency of teungku dayah succeeded in mobilizing the villagers due to the social capital that bonded the community based on religious ties. The article used live-in method, observation, in-depth and interviews to build a sociological imagination about  the patterns of social practice of the people who  become  the subject  of the research. The researchers lived in one of the villager’s houses, participated in their discussions, listened to the gossip, worshipped with them and were involved in certain jobs carried out by the community members who targeted informants. Using religious social capital, this article argues that teungku dayah effectively  used  the social and  religious capital  of the Ujong Pacu community to conduct drug eradication. Religious social capital has strong ties in unifying elements of the people in the same religion, moreover it becomes an energy that keeps motivating the community to run anti-drugs movement and driving out the drug addicts in Ujong Pacu, Lhokseumawe-Aceh.

scholarly journals Between field and home: notes from the balcony

2021 ◽  
pp. 147447402110205
Author(s):  
Shruti Ragavan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Dairy Farms ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
The Past ◽  
Urban Village ◽  
The City

Balconies, windows and terraces have come to be identified as spaces with newfound meaning over the past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and concomitant lockdowns. There was not only a marked increase in the use of these spaces, but more importantly a difference in the very nature of this use since March 2020. It is keeping this latter point in mind, that I make an attempt to understand the spatial mobilities afforded by the balcony in the area of ethnographic research. The street overlooking my balcony, situated amidst an urban village in the city of Delhi – one of my field sites, is composed of middle and lower-middle class residents, dairy farms and farmers, bovines and other nonhumans. In this note, through ethnographic observations, I reflect upon the balcony as constituting that liminal space between ‘field’ and ‘home’, as well as, as a spatial framing device which conditions and affects our observations and interactions. This is explored by examining two elements – the gendered nature of the space, and the notion of ‘distance and proximity’, through personal narratives of engaging-with the field, and subjects-objects of study in the city.

Being an Addict and Healing: Narratives and Practices in A Gospel Rehabilitation Center

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Yumeng YAO
Keyword(s):  
Drug Users ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Drug Addicts ◽  
Rehabilitation Center ◽  
Geographic Factor ◽  
Border Areas ◽  
Healing Narratives

As a social problem, addiction is especially troublesome in the southwestern border areas of China. This research explores how they became addicts and how to deal with it based on six months of ethnographic research in a gospel rehabilitation center in Yunnan. In rationality analysis and discussion, personal choices of drug users arc often held accountable. However > it is necessary to take the geographic factor and historical background into consideration when reflecting on their way of being addicted. Besides? this study would > through personal narratives of drug addicts? attempt to introduce the irrationality factor of desire to analyze from the perspective of the subjects how their drug use experience is related to the society through desires. And then, by using participant observation of their daily practices in the center, this study makes an in-depth exploration of how such desires arc handled through healing treatment at the Gospel Rehabilitation Center. And how they through healing practices to realize rebirth.

scholarly journals Towards Religious Understanding: An Assessment of the Ambivalence Roles of Religious Leaders in Christian-Muslim Relations in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Rapheal Joseph Ojo
Keyword(s):  
Religious Communities ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
General Belief ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
The Government ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Religious Understanding ◽  
Shaky Ground

The world today is becoming more violent than ever before. Sometimes, the violence can be political, ethnic, economic and or religious. In most cases, distinguishing the main cause of such violence from other causes might be difficult. The factors could be a combination of two issues viz: ethnoreligious conflicts or politico-religious conflicts. The religious experience in Nigeria today, as a multi-religious society so far has proven contrary to the general belief and the widespread expectation of people about religion as an institution that promotes social integration. Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria today (though being the dominant religions in Nigeria) is standing on shaky ground. The relationship is highly characterized by mutual suspicion, mistrust and distrust. In understanding this characterized reality in their interactions, this work interrogated the ambivalence roles played by religious leaders in Nigeria. And in doing this, the ethnographic research method was adopted. As part of its findings, it was discovered that there is a high level of intolerance among Christians and Muslims in Nigeria occasioned by unguarded utterances and abuse of freedom of speech by many uncensored religious leaders. Thus, setting the stage for avoidable and constant religious confrontations among the adherents of the two religious communities in Nigeria. The study recommends that peaceful co-existence can be possible if the government is responsible and responsive enough to address the basic needs of her masses which would reduce largely the manipulation of religion by clerics for personal gain. Furthermore, the place of meaningful dialogue should be embraced by religious leaders across different religious divides. Keywords: Christian-Muslim Relations, Dialogue, Peaceful Co-existence, Religious leaders, Religious Understanding

Growing Up Indian, Becoming Immigrants

2019 ◽  
pp. 55-104
Author(s):  
Jennifer B. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Immigration Experience ◽  
Narrative Performances

Chapter 3 focuses on narratives about immigration and reveals performers’ interpretations of the immigration experience and the processes by which they shape their transnational social realities. A close reading of their performances uncovers the ways that dharm (“religion” or “duty”) shapes the Guptas and their social networks’ understandings of immigration, adjustment, and the identities that both precipitate and result from these experiences. Interpreting the Guptas’, their family’s, and their community’s narrative performances of immigration within the context of dharm demonstrates their participation in creating identities, shaping community, and reinterpreting dharm in a transnational context. Two features of the Guptas’ immigration narratives—ambivalence and comparison—work together to help these immigrants and their families enact their imagination in co-constructing their experience as transnational.

Faith in Ethnographic Process

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-189
Author(s):  
Kathleen E. Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Analytic Method ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Practical Theological

This article addresses methodological points related to ethnography that are not found as commonly in social scientific methods sections: the anxiety related to the development of ethnographic research question(s), decisions regarding sampling, and the extensive process of coding and analysis. I argue that embracing serendipity in ethnographic research and developing trust in an analytic method is a valuable stance for addressing sociological and practical theological questions in the study of dynamic religious communities.

Process and Product in Collaborative Media: Making Neighbors and Nature in Harmony

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-17
Author(s):  
Maris Gillette
Keyword(s):  
Local People ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Community Media ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Creation

For two years between 2008 and 2010, I worked as a facilitator for a Philadelphia-based non-profit community media organization on a project where local people spoke out about the value of their own communities through the creation of a short documentary films. My job was to help community members tell the story that they wanted to tell, while ensuring that it met scholarly standards for historical and ethnographic research. In each of the two films the process revealed significant differences between community members regarding the who, what, where, when, why and how of representation. Each group had to work through these differences to produce a film that all participants could sign off on, or they would lose participants who felt that their voices were not heard and end up with a product that was not community media.

Contested Stance Practices in Secular Yiddish Metalinguistic Communities: Negotiating Closeness and Distance

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Netta Avineri
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Language Socialization ◽  
Classroom Interactions ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Personal Histories ◽  
Public Demonstrations

Abstract This ethnographic research examines language socialization practices and language ideologies in secular Yiddish “metalinguistic communities,” communities of positioned social actors shaped by practices that view language as an object. “Metalinguistic community” is a framework for diverse participants who can experience both distance from and closeness to the language and its speakers, due to historical, personal, and/or communal circumstances. Through an examination of classroom interactions in California, this article shows how simultaneous distancing and closeness experienced by metalinguistic community members can manifest in “contested stance practices,” public demonstrations of language ideologies that reveal both internal and external tensions. Contested stance practices reveal how members’ perceptions of language are shaped by their personal histories and those of their imagined communities; these practices become a fertile means through which individuals negotiate their relationships with language as a symbol of identity, ideology, and community.

Stigma and Health/Risk Communication

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel A. Smith ◽  
Xun Zhu ◽  
Madisen Quesnell
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Community Networks ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Health And Wellbeing

Stigmas are profoundly negative stereotypes of a social group and its members that have diffused and normalized throughout a community. Being marked as a member of a stigmatized group does more than designate someone as different: stigmas denote people as discredited, devalued, and disgraced. Stigmas shape health and risk communication and are considered the leading—but least understood—barrier to health promotion. Communication and stigmas are dynamically connected. Communication is critical to a stigma’s existence, spread, expression, coping, and elimination. Using mediated and interpersonal communication, community members are socialized to recognize and react to stigmatized people. People use communication to enact the devaluation and ostracism of stigmatized people, and stigmatized people use communication to cope with stigmatization. Stigmas also shape communication: stigmas compel non-marked persons to engage in stigmatization and ostracism of marked persons, reduce marked people’s disclosure and encourage secrecy, and shape the characteristics of personal and community networks. Last, campaigns have used communication to attempt to eliminate existing stigmas. The accumulating research, conducted from diverse assumptions about human behavior (cultural determinism, evolutionary, socio-functional), shows how easily and effectively stigmas may be socialized; how challenging they are to manage; how many facets of health and wellbeing are devastated by their existence; and how difficult it is to attenuate them. While much has been uncovered about stigma, health, and risk, many questions remain. Among these include: How can one design messages that effectively alert the general public about imminent health threats and that successfully promote desirable behavioral changes without evoking stigma processes? How do different reactions to stigmatization influence targets and their social networks? What factors increase resistance or vulnerability to messages containing stigma-inducing content? How can one create an effective, reliable means to eliminate existing stigmas?

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