Evangelical transformations of empowerment and female Romani pastors

This article analyses the empowerment of Romani women in Pentecostal societies in Bulgaria, discussing their diverse experiences in church lives, their opportunities, and the limitations they have as spiritual leaders. Using case material from my ethnographic research, I examine how Pentecostalism intersects with gender dynamics. In presenting the voices of pastors’ wives and female leaders, I reveal their areas of action and participation in formal, or less formal, religious practices. The text suggests that performing miracles is one of the key elements of the transmission of respect from male to female pastors and represents an attempt to achieve a cultural change through the adoption of evangelical Christianity. Moreover, the woman’s involvement in harmonizing social relations between church members, and between evangelists and non-evangelists has become important for non-religious aspects of everyday life. The main goal of the article is to foster an open discussion on the transformations of empowerment and female leadership, which are less studied topics within the much-explored research area of Romani Pentecostalism.

Praying through the pandemic: Religion, uncertainty, and care

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Roma Pentecostal converts in England continued to meet for religious gatherings and communal prayer, either outdoors or in private homes of church members, despite measures put in place by the British government that limited the number of social contacts between individuals and at times forbade visiting other households. Among the members of the Life and Light church are many who belong to one of the high-risk categories for complications from Covid-19. Why would converts take part in activities that involved increased risk of virus transmission and increase their possibility of getting ill? This paper draws on informal online and in-person conversations with Roma that took place during the summer and autumn of 2020 and reflects on religion and communal prayer as a strategy of coping with the heightened uncertainty brought by the pandemic. It argues that participating in religious meetings where people jointly pray for others, both those who present and those who are absent, is an intangible form of care that helps to forge, shape, and maintain social relationships and creates a sense of belonging and continuity. In addition, praying is an embodied expression of one’s relationship to a transcendental entity, Jesus, and of placing oneself into the caring hands of God and Jesus. Lastly, the Church provides material support for members who are in a difficult financial situation. Participating in Church activities like prayer meetings is an expression of belonging to a religious collectivity and can help gain access to this material help in situations when access to state-provided care and material support is limited or absent, thus opening for church members the possibility of tangible forms of care. The paper looks at the role of religion in dealing with the uncertainty that Roma migrants experience when dealing with the state and going about their everyday lives and the upheaval and increased uncertainty brought by the pandemic.

Intersecting religion and ethnicity: Drawing boundaries in talk-in-interaction

People of Romani background are usually labelled as members of an “ethnic minority” and identified along dominantly ethnicized notions and markers. Discursively, this neglects individuals’ different self-perceptions and multiple belongings. This contribution looks at interactional data and material from workshops conducted in Germany as part of the EU-wide initiative RoMed (Mediation for Roma). The initiative aimed to strengthen opportunities for local participation by people of Romani background in various European cities and communities between 2011-2017. A conversation analytical approach (e.g. at practices of categorization) is used to examine excerpts from group discussions ahead of a meeting with public officials. From an intersectional perspective I look at how boundaries are drawn, blurred, or destabilized between issues of religiosity and ethnicity. The article discusses boundary-drawing as a symbolic ordering process, highlighting the hegemonic discourses which are reproduced and challenged in the investigated linguistic material. The boundaries drawn and negotiated show the delicate balance between the staging of ethnic and religious affiliations and concerns and their political mobilization.

Traditional Romani Christianity vs Pentecostal and neo-Protestant Christianity: A grounded picture of religiosity and spirituality among the Roma in the twenty-first century in Slovakia

Through the example of specific locations settled by the Roma population in Slovakia, the study offers a grounded picture of Romani religiosity and spirituality in the twenty-first century. The author provides a brief overview of the analytical grasping of this phenomenon in the scientific community, as well as remarks on the seemingly neutral analytical terms used for the description of religiosity and spirituality among the Roma, which may contain clichés or be eventually culturally and intellectually colonialist. Based on multi-sited ethnographies in Slovakia, the author elucidates how traditional Romani Christianity is confronted with Pentecostal and neo-Protestant Christianity, which are considered non-traditional within the traditionally Roman Catholic Slovakia. To avoid scientific exotization of Romani religious culture, the author describes the main elements of traditional Romani Christianity based on the emic insights of non-Pentecostal Roma from various localities and through the lenses of the Pentecostal discourse (converts and pastors). She also mentions the fluid and postmodern features of Romani Christianity, which have preserved numerous traditional elements fluidly mixed with post-traditional and ultra-modern forms of spirituality and religiosity.

Cases of contemporary re-Islamization among Roma in Bulgaria

Since the beginning of the 1990s, various religious processes can be observed among the Roma community and other ethnic minorities in Bulgaria. In parallel with the conversion of Orthodox Christian and Sunni Muslim Roma to evangelical Christianity, processes of re-Islamization have also been taking place. Based on a series of legislative and judicial decisions taken by local and state institutions, cases of re-Islamization have been presented to the public as examples of the spread of radical Islam, a trend that could lead to ethnic conflicts and to the perception that the Roma are a threat to national security. Contrary to this already popular notion, the results of my ethnological study (2018-2020) among various local Roma Islamic groups in Southern Bulgaria led to a different conclusion. This paper draws attention to small groups of newly converted Turkish-speaking Roma and focuses on the emic perspective of the members of the studied groups regarding the interpretation of the new religious ideas they more or less adhere to.