Studia Humanistyczne AGH
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ISSN 2084-3364
e-ISSN: 2300-7109
Issue Date
2016
Volume
T. 15
Number
Nr 3
Description
Journal Volume
Studia Humanistyczne AGH
T. 15 (2016)
Projects
Pages
Articles
Gender in religion? Religion in gender? Commentary on theory and research on gender and religion
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2016) Leszczyńska, Katarzyna; Zielińska, Katarzyna
In recent years the concept of gender has become one of the key categories used in social sciences and in the field of religious studies and its varied dimensions (see: Avishai, Jafar, Rinaldo 2015; Calef 2009; Joy 2010; Woodhead 2007). According to Morny Joy (2010), as well as Afshan Jafar, Rachel Rinaldo and Orit Avishai (2015), we can point to special features and connotations of the concept of gender in this research. Therefore, gender is often understood in research on religion as a descriptive and historical category. This means that it depicts particular life situations of women (rarely men) in the context of religion, including their religious experiences, religious practices in everyday life and at varied levels of religious order (cultural, individual and institutional ones).1 Gender in this interpretation serves not as an abstract tool of sociological analysis, but as an empirical and very essentialist category (Joy 2010). It implies that the concept of gender describes the fates of a concrete community of religious women (and this community is understood as a homogenous and biological one), rather than patterns of the practices reproducing gender rules regardless of the anatomical sex of the social actors following them.
Emancypacja religijna a percepcja roli kobiety w sytacji migracyjnej na przykładzie polskich migrantek w Islandii
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2016) Koralewska, Inga
According to my research, not only migrants’ understanding of religiosity changes in migratory situation, but also the understanding of their agency in this process. Migrants position themselves as active agents and individually define their religiosity anew. As was stated, their new religiosity is individual and not institutional. There are certain grounds for supposing, that migratory experience plays a vital role in the process of religious emancipation. Goal of the paper is to answer the question whether migratory situation, apart from being a source of religiosity change, contributes also to change in attitudes towards gender roles in society. The answer is based on qualitative research conducted in years 2012–2015 in Iceland.
Weapons of the weak or weak weapons? Women, priests, and power negotiations in roman catholic parishes in rural Poland
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2016) Pasieka, Agnieszka
Drawing on James Scott’s works on »everyday resistance« and »weapons of the weak«, this article inquires whether Roman Catholic women’s gossip and jokes about priests may lead to a redefinition of priest-parishioners’ relations. Using ethnographic material collected during field research in rural Poland, the article demonstrates the ambivalent nature of anticlerical jokes and rumours, which, rather than constituting a tool of change, reaffirm the existing order. In putting forward this argument, the article critically engages with Scott’s theory and reflects on the problematic role of researchers in presenting the issue of agency and resistance. The analyzed case-study from the Polish countryside constitutes a point of departure for addressing a broader context of church-state relations and the situation of women in the Catholic Church in Poland.
Czego nie dowiemy się o globalnej rewolucji płci bez badania religii w życiu migrantów
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2016) Urbańska, Sylwia
Since the late 1980s there has been a growing interest in women’s migration, which led to the emergence of intersectional analysis as a main focus of gendered studies of mobility. However, intersectional research of global migration processes rarely includes the analysis of religion in the experience of migrants, not asking about the possible role of religion in the gender revolution. Studies focus primarily (and often only) on the gendered division of care work, new forms of maintaining transnational families, and caring for children from abroad. In this article I present a preliminary overview of studies, which analyze the intersection of migration, gender, care work, and religion. I show that the inclusion of religion in the analysis helps to answer in a more complex way, how the shifts in gender roles, contracts, and the public-private division happen.
Kategoria męskości w dyskursie Kościoła katolickiego we współczesnej Polsce
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2016) Arcimowicz, Krzysztof
The objective of the article was to analyze principal discursive strategies employed in the period 1994–2015 in creating the category of masculinity by clergymen. Owing to the intertextuality of the ecclesiastical discourse the research material contained, beside statements of Polish bishops and priests, also official documents issued by Vatican as well as popes’ opinions. In addition, I included discourse on masculinity in the Catholic communities of laymen. The research material embraced nearly 100 texts. In the analysis I used proposals of discursive-historical approach in the critical discourse analysis. Most of the discursive strategies are characterized by a clear patriarchal nature. Polish hierarchs and priests opt for the equality of men and women, but simultaneously many expressions demonstrate a topos of asymmetry of gender roles, as well as the strategy of the man’s superiority over the woman. The ecclesiastical discourse clearly demonstrates homophobic opinions on homosexual relationships. The sharp attack of the Catholic Church on new progressive ideas referring to masculine roles as well as relations between women and men, which has intensified over this decade, should be perceived as an attempt to protect the shaky traditional gender order and to maintain the normative and symbolic power by the hierarchs.