(Re)inventions and (dis)continuations of the Catholic tradition: community-making in a Spanish village
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Date
30/11/2021Author
Almudéver Chanzà, Josep
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Abstract
This thesis is an ethnographic portrait of the return and re-invention of religious traditions
and festivities in a Spanish village. Through participant observation, interviews, and archival
research, I explore the inventive return of public expressions of religion in the context of local
and global geographies of religion, secularism and cultural representation. The thesis is
framed by the oral histories and everyday experiences of villagers, which encompass
memories of the country’s past, including the involvement of the Catholic Church in the
Spanish Civil War (1935-1939) and the consequent dictatorship (1939-1975); the
consequences of austerity policies born out of the 2008 global financial crisis; a preoccupation
with the preservation of material practices against a new iconoclast movement that is gaining
force in the village; and the quiet contestation of Church doctrine and democratisation of
faith which go in parallel with the social changes undergone by Spanish society in the last few
decades. The chapters examine the manifold and often contradictory attitudes and theologies
that accompany changes in public religiosity, community dynamics that affect and are
affected by the villager’s narratives of the present, past and future. Central to this account of
laity-led religious innovation is gender: women are the majority of villagers intent in re-populating the streets, the marketplace and the village square through, effectively, a public
re-sacralisation of space. Religious rituals adapt to the new and increasing demands made by
sexual and gender minorities, precisely those who the Catholic Church has historically
marginalised. Some of the questions the thesis answers are: what are the dynamics and
nature of intra-religious co-existence? what is the socio-political impact of faith-based
organisations in local economies of care in purportedly secular states? what role do religious
leaders (both lay and ordained) play in these developments? what does the democratisation
of sacraments entail for the secular spaces it infiltrates and for Catholic doctrine? Drawing
from feminist scholarship, critical theory and theology, this thesis contributes innovatively to
debates on the geopolitics of religion in 21st century societies.