‘Gestures that do’: Spiritist manifestations and the technologies of religious subjectivation and affect

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Romberg
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Spiritual Healing ◽  
The Self ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Past ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
Religious Subject

This article explores theoretically and ethnographically how gestures ‘do’ within Spiritist religious practices. According to the emic Spiritist notion of ‘manifestations’, certain gestures can bridge between material and spiritual realms and the various dimensions of the self. Embodying the moral economy and dispositions of Spiritism, such gestures are thereby investigated as affective and practical technologies for constituting the religious subject within Spiritism without passing by belief and cognition. Based on close ethnographic accounts and visual documentation of the work of Puerto Rican healers, the author traces the performative illocutionary power of gestures during cleansing, divination, healing and possession rituals. Finally, she proposes ‘inter-gesturality’ as a way to address the power relations behind gestural ‘quotations’ and to trace the embodied interrelationships that have shaped in the past and are shaping in the present the religious significance of gestures, the emotions they elicit, the religious subjectification processes they constitute and the spiritual healing they can promote.

Immanence and Micropolitics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Gilliam
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
Conceptual Necessity ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Pure Immanence ◽  
Alternative Understanding

Christian Gilliam argues that a philosophy of ‘pure’ immanence is integral to the development of an alternative understanding of ‘the political’; one that re-orients our understanding of the self toward the concept of an unconscious or ‘micropolitical’ life of desire. He argues that here, in this ‘life’, is where the power relations integral to the continuation of post-industrial capitalism are most present and most at stake. Through proving its philosophical context, lineage and political import, Gilliam ultimately justifies the conceptual necessity of immanence in understanding politics and resistance, thereby challenging the claim that ontologies of ‘pure’ immanence are either apolitical or politically incoherent.

Les héritages chrétiens: quel avenir?

Moreana ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (Number 176) (1) ◽  
pp. 175-190
Author(s):  
Bernard Bourdin
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Past ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
Politics And Religion

The legacy from Christianity unquestionably lies at the root of Europe, even if not exclusively. It has taken many aspects from the Middle Ages to modern times. If the Christian heritage is diversely understood and accepted within the European Union, the reason is essentially due to its political and religious significance. However, its impact in politics and religion has often been far from negative, if we will consider what secular societies have derived from Christianity: human rights, for example, and a religious affiliation which has been part and parcel of national identity. The Christian legacy has to be acknowledged through a critical analysis which does not deny the truth of the past but should support a European project built around common values.

scholarly journals Self-exciting multifractional processes

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-41
Author(s):  
Fabian A. Harang ◽  
Marc Lagunas-Merino ◽  
Salvador Ortiz-Latorre
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Process ◽  
Brownian Motion ◽  
Rate Of Convergence ◽  
Existence And Uniqueness ◽  
Volterra Equation ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stochastic Volterra Equation ◽  
Multifractional Brownian Motion ◽  
Self Organizing

AbstractWe propose a new multifractional stochastic process which allows for self-exciting behavior, similar to what can be seen for example in earthquakes and other self-organizing phenomena. The process can be seen as an extension of a multifractional Brownian motion, where the Hurst function is dependent on the past of the process. We define this by means of a stochastic Volterra equation, and we prove existence and uniqueness of this equation, as well as giving bounds on the p-order moments, for all $p\geq1$. We show convergence of an Euler–Maruyama scheme for the process, and also give the rate of convergence, which is dependent on the self-exciting dynamics of the process. Moreover, we discuss various applications of this process, and give examples of different functions to model self-exciting behavior.

scholarly journals The Effects of Self-Compassion and Self-Esteem Writing Interventions on Women’s Valuation of Weight Management Goals, Body Appreciation, and Eating Behaviors

2021 ◽  
pp. 036168432110134
Author(s):  
Kheana Barbeau ◽  
Camille Guertin ◽  
Kayla Boileau ◽  
Luc Pelletier
Keyword(s):  
Weight Management ◽  
Expressive Writing ◽  
Eating Behaviors ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
The Self ◽  
Body Appreciation ◽  
Writing Interventions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Compassion ◽  
Bulimic Symptoms

In this study, we examined the effects of body-focused daily self-compassion and self-esteem expressive writing activities on women’s valuation of weight management goals, body appreciation, bulimic symptoms, and healthy and unhealthy eating behaviors. One-hundred twenty-six women, recruited from the community and a university participant pool ( Mage = 29.3, SD = 13.6), were randomly allocated to one of the three writing conditions: body-focused self-compassion, body-focused self-esteem, or control. Women reflected on a moment within the past 24 hours that made them feel self-conscious about their bodies, eating, or exercise habits (self-compassion and self-esteem conditions) or on a particular situation or feeling that occurred in the past 24 hours (control condition) for 4–7 days. At post-treatment (24 hours after the intervention), women in the self-compassion group demonstrated decreased bulimic symptoms, while women in the self-esteem and control conditions did not. Furthermore, clinically significant changes in bulimic symptoms were associated with being in the self-compassion condition but not in the self-esteem or control conditions. Results suggest that body-focused writing interventions may be more effective in temporarily reducing eating disorder symptoms in women if they focus on harnessing self-compassion. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843211013465

Drafted into a Foreign War?

Rhizomata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-217
Author(s):  
Matthew Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
Analytic Tradition ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
The Past ◽  
Rational Inquiry

Abstract This paper examines the central criticisms that come, broadly, from the modern, ‘analytic’ tradition, of Pierre Hadot’s idea of ancient philosophy as a way of life.: Firstly, ancient philosophy just did not or could not have involved anything like the ‘spiritual practices’ or ‘technologies of the self’, aiming at curing subjects’ unnecessary desires or bettering their lives, contra Hadot and Foucault et al. Secondly, any such metaphilosophical account of putative ‘philosophy’ must unacceptably downplay the role of ‘serious philosophical reasoning’ or ‘rigorous argument’ in philosophy. Thirdly, claims that ancient philosophy aimed at securing wisdom by a variety of means including but not restricted to rational inquiry are accordingly false also as historical claims about the ancient philosophers. Fourthly, to the extent that we must (despite (3)) admit that some ancient thinkers did engage in or recommend extra-cognitive forms of transformative practice, these thinkers were not true or ‘mainline’ philosophers. I contend that the historical claims (3) and (4) are highly contestable, risking erroneously projecting a later modern conception of philosophy back onto the past. Of the theoretical or metaphilosophical claims (1) and (2), I argue that the second claim, as framed here, points to real, hard questions that surround the conception(s) of philosophy as a way of life.

scholarly journals Immunizing the Flock: How the Pandemic Court Rewrote Religious Freedom

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Paul Baumgardner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Past ◽  
The U.S

When coronavirus began to descend upon the United States, religious freedom advocates across the country sounded the alarm that citizens’ religious practices and institutions were under threat. Although some of the most extreme arguments championed by these advocates were not validated by our legal system, many were. This article explores the underappreciated gains made by religious freedom advocates before the U.S. Supreme Court over the past year. As a result of the “Pandemic Court”, religious freedom in the United States has been rewritten. This promises to radically change the educational, employment, and health prospects of millions of Americans for the rest of the pandemic and long afterwards.

Bausteine zu einer Geographie des Kapitalismus

2003 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Zeller
Keyword(s):  
Economic Geography ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
The Political ◽  
Reciprocal Effects ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Socially Relevant

Elements of a geography of capitalism. Despite the variety of new approaches economic geography developed rather one-sided in the past decade. The regional and the firm lenses hardly enabled to recognize how economic processes and political power relations interact on different scales. These empirical deficits also express a restricted theoretical base. The approaches of the new “regional orthodoxy” claim to explain conditions of an improved competitiveness of firms and of regions. However, many socially relevant and spatially differentiated problems are ignored. In contrast, this paper argues for an integrative understanding of the capitalist economy in its historical dynamics and with its reciprocal effects for actors on various scales. In the course of neoliberal deregulation policies and globalization processes, a finance-dominated accumulation regime emerged in the USA which shapes the economy on a global scale. Institutional investors gained decisive control over investments. The political power relations and hierarchies between states remain important. Therefore, the paper suggests a shift of economic geographical research. In the perspective of an integrative geography of capitalism the paper outlines a research agenda of a geography of accumulation, a geography of production as well as a geography of power

Moral economy: What’s in a name

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G Carrier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empty Symbol ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moral Economic

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value.

scholarly journals Desiring the Secular: Capital, Cohesion, and the Fantasy of Secularization

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Ian A. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Religious Subject ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Public Sphere

Towards the end of the twentieth century, religion re-emerged as a topic of pressing concern in a number of the most self-consciously secularized states of the global north. From disputes over the wearing of headscarves in schools to debates over accommodations for religious practices in the public sphere, religion, particularly the ‘foreign’ religiosity of migrants and other minority religious subjects, appeared on the scene as a phenomenon whose proper place and role in society required both urgent and careful deliberation. This article argues that in order to account for the affective potency produced by the immanence of the figure of the ‘foreign’ religious subject, it is necessary to understand secularization as fantasy. It is within the fantasy of secularization that the secular emerges as an object of desire—as something that, if attained, appears as a solution to the problem of ‘foreign’ religiosity—and figures of inassimilable religiosity assume the role of scapegoats for the failure to resolve these concerns. In this sense, within this fantasy scene, the secular promises to provide ‘us’ with something that we are lacking. However, this promise has been undermined by the apparent persistence of religious difference. As such, as a result of their continued religiosity, ‘they’ appear to be taking something from ‘us’.

Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Century ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
The West ◽  
City Life ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
The Past ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Point Of Departure

What does it mean to be a good citizen today? What are practices of citizenship? And what can we learn from the past about these practices to better engage in city life in the twenty-first century? Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self is a collection of papers that examine these questions. The contributors come from a variety of different disciplines, including architecture, urbanism, philosophy, and history, and their essays make comparative examinations of the practices of citizenship from the ancient world to the present day in both the East and the West. The papers’ comparative approaches, between East and West, and ancient and modern, leads to a greater understanding of the challenges facing citizens in the urbanized twenty-first century, and by looking at past examples, suggests ways of addressing them. While the book’s point of departure is philosophical, its key aim is to examine how philosophy can be applied to everyday life for the betterment of citizens in cities not just in Asia and the West but everywhere.

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