Theme 5 – Lived Religion

Panel video to be placed here.

NB! All comments from the audience are removed to secure privacy.

Panel discussion:

Dr Marjo-Riitta Antikainen, University of Helsinki
Prof. Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, University of Southern Denmark
Dr Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, Tampere University
Prof. Piroska Nagy, Université du Québec à Montréal
Dr Reima Välimäki, University of Turku

Chair: Prof. Raisa Maria Toivo, Tampere University/HEX & Dr. Jenni Kuuliala, Senior Research Fellow, Tampere University/HEX

The question of agency is crucial yet challenging for the study of lived religion. Agency has often been defined in very secular terms, as freedom to behave in any self-willed way, or as individual autonomy. However, as pointed out by scholars such as Phyllis Mack or Jörg Rüpke, within the concept of lived religion the definitions and meanings of agency are much more versatile. As lived religion understands faith not as a theological dogma or a top-down phenomenon but as a sphere where people performed their selves and were in contact with their community members as well as with divine agents, such autonomy is not necessarily a fruitful point of analysis, nor even a possibility. Instead, religious agency always occurs in relation with the spiritual being the person in question wanted to communicate with, and this communication could reinforce or decrease human agency. Simultaneously, the divine agents had agency of their own which was interpreted and responded to by the communities.

This virtual roundtable will discuss the concept of agency within the study of lived religion, from a longue-durée perspective and varying viewpoints to lived religion. We will approach agency and lived religion particularly in the framework of experience, and question the possibilities and pitfalls of the concept.

To read the panelists’ bios, please click on the names below:

Dr Marjo-Riitta Antikainen
Prof. Louise Nyholm Kallestrup
Dr Sari Katajala-Peltomaa
Prof. Piroska Nagy
Dr Reima Välimäki

Introductory videos

Louise Nyholm Kallestrup power point presentation

Piroska Nagy power point presentation

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Comments

I enjoyed the panel discussion very much. It prompted me to watch in the evening on Amazon Prime, Mark Fielder’s (2012) documentary War on Witches. This followed on nicely from the panel, as I saw in the documentary the desire of Christian structures to remove other spiritual powers, then the conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants increasing the desire for pure structures and space, and Protestants viewing Catholics as witches, all adding to an environment of actively destroying ‘witches.’ The documentary adds an account of personal paranoia of a Scottish/English king, who through experiences in Denmark, formulated his ideas on spirits in books so that others could put them into practice – even with a legacy until the present. Indeed, the panel got me thinking, that although we do not witness today people being burned at the stake or wheeling, we can witness the same conceptual structures at play. The treatment of single mothers in my living memory in the UK, and especially Ireland. The antisemitism and present xenophobia of Christian ethnonationalists. Indeed, the ‘demonizing’ of races. I have heard testimony of Roma Christians being treated discriminately in Finland, and new Christian immigrants being turned away by churches, and denied by immigration officials. Repeatedly we hear accounts of authorities taking away children from parents to civilize, Christianize, nationalize and remove the culture and spirituality of their parents – Saami, aborigines, Jews, etc. I have personally experienced in Finland harassment and verbal attacks for being non-Lutheran, although I am a Christian. The dilemma, therefore, is that in lived religion, if that is the right term, because there is a contradiction in it, that people live with multiple complexities that do not fit exactly into pure structures (religion). So that, Lutheranism is now expressed on a Yoga mat, or on a mindfulness retreat, and is shaped by clicking access to global content once thought exotic. Perhaps to the extent that one no longer feels Lutheran. This got me thinking there is an obvious tension between personal agency and religious structure; between human rights of agency of an individual and the rights of religious structures to impose static identities. So, how to develop living religion, or rather how to shape religion to work with living people? The concept religion comes out of a Christian context, yet Hebraic thinking resists being defined and rejoices in being diverse, and this root has been lost, perhaps, by noun-based Christianity. Instead of defining nouns, which is bound to reject people for being insufficient and encourage hypocrisy, we should ethically evaluate verbs – living actions. Lived religion is people doing actions, not structures, which are not necessarily living – that is with their own agency independent of people. People make the structures living.

Richard Croft

12.3.2021 16:10

Comment from Eeva Nikkilä:

As a PhD candidate who is interested in using the concept of experience and applying it to non-human animals I am also confronted with the concept of agency. I think it’s important to notice that even if you are not researching animals in your work, it is still important to realise why you are defining the concepts the way you are (for example, defining agency and experience as something that non-humans don’t have) because when we define human action, we are also defining non-humans. So to think that agency is something we grant is to think that non-humans don’t have it without us, and I think this is something we as historians should think about more. But this isn’t really about lived religion anymore, just something that I wanted to point out since non-humans were mentioned.

Jenni Kuuliala

11.3.2021 13:58

A question from Riikka Miettinen:

About the spatial aspects of experiencing and agency: there were many places and spaces (or in fact any space) where the sacred could be experienced or religion ‘lived out’, but some of these spaces, for example, specific sacred sites entailed different cultural scripts for constructing experiences. Do you think that these, at times very particular and memetic scripts could drastically limit the person’s religious agency (and the capacity to pick and choose meanings)? But did people at times breach these specific scripts and ‘norms of experiencing’ in holy spaces and places? More generally, how do you approach these very site-specific elements of religious experiencing and agency?

Jenni Kuuliala

11.3.2021 13:56

From Ville Vuolanto:

A short comment to Riikka Miettinen’s question: In my perspective, cultural scripts as much enable than restrict agency. That is: as far as there is actual ability to act, ‘agreeing’ to cultural expectations, norms and scripts would be as much a sign of agency than revolting against these. There is, of course, a difference if we are particularly interested on finding people to claim specific agency.

Jenni Kuuliala

11.3.2021 13:57

Piroska, this was a very thought-provoking presentation. thank you! can you tease out more the concept of protagonism? I’m not sure I got it right but, if protagonism suggests that moments (revolutionary or critical) CREATE occasions for attitudes and behaviours to ‘happen’, are we in danger of removing the human agent entirely from history (which has of course moral implications)? or is it more relational? Karen

Karen McCluskey

11.3.2021 08:13

Thanks for all your contributions. This is such great work.
Sari. Just wondering if you might tease out a bit more the different agentic practices (in relation to demon possession), distinguishing between for example supernatural agency (ie. the demon/entity/saint) and human agency (for eg the victim – do we call demoniacs victims? – the ecclesiast or helper who assists demoniac to appeal to saint, or others?). Can you explore how experience ties into this transformative moment more specifically as I’m still seeing agency and experience as two separate things. Maybe they are related? i think that is what you are arguing.

Karen McCluskey

11.3.2021 06:31

Dear Karen,
thanks – great comment and I hope we can get into these questions more in the panel. There are different processes of claiming agency (which I am more interested in than “agency” as a fixed category); in didactic miracle collections it is saints and demons that possessed autonomous agency and often the clergy tried to acquire it – claiming for an intermediary position; while demoniacs are depicted as objects. In depositions, the lay participants’ claims for agency (stressing the signs of delivery and their rituals participation in delivery) is more emphasized.
If we take “an experience” in this context to be the whole interpretative process (deviant behavior defined as caused by malign spirits, interaction with a saint to ameliorate the situation, official inquiry of the event and forming a narration that fits into the pattern of canonization inquest) not merely a singular occurrence, then agentical acts are crucial in it. Experiences as social processes require interpreting, negotiating and giving meaning – agency.

Sari

11.3.2021 09:51

Thanks so much Sari (and Ville) for the clarification and extra thoughts. These are such critical elements of HEX; being precise, I’m finding, is ever more important. Karen

Karen McCluskey

19.3.2021 08:47

Interesting discussion!
Two short points: First on agency – I do not think it would be fruitful to stress ‘(full) autonomy’ as a part of the agency (it suffices to point out that if we are taking the word ‘autonomy’ seriously, none of our acts can never be autonomous) – rather, as comes out nicely in Nagy’s presentation – agency is rather a possibility of making a difference, and a concept referring to relationships (esp. for historians). And relationships can hardly be autonymous …

Another thing is the relationship between agency and experience, which I think, is nicely put in Sari’s last sentence in her answer. Experiences result to agency – and agency, in turn, makes experiences visible. Therefore, again, for a historian od experience, agency is a crucial concept.

Ville Vuolanto

11.3.2021 11:33