Traditional and Nontraditional Forms of Popular Religion in Sicily

该项目支持两位文化人类学家研究新教五旬节教和更传统或天主教形式的流行宗教如何参与意大利南部性别、家庭和人格定义的新文化模式的创建。流行的宗教人士和五旬节派教徒在相同的家庭、亲属网络和邻里之间进行密切的互动。该项目将通过研究家庭关系、疗愈表演、皈依故事和生活史以及寺庙中的文化模式来检验这些文化模式的异同。两名首席调查人员将在西西里的两个主要城市中心--巴勒莫和卡塔尼亚进行这项研究。在每个现场，参与者观察将得到调查分析和口头历史方法的补充，比较五旬节派教会成员、教会成员的非五旬节派亲属、前五旬节派教会成员(辍学)，以及一群与五旬节派无关的流行宗教人士。这项研究很重要，因为大众宗教是世界上大多数文化中的一股重要力量，了解新旧大众宗教之间的关系将有助于我们理解宗教的重要性是如何消长的。

This project supports two cultural anthropologists studying ways in which Protestant Pentecostalism and more traditional or Catholic forms of popular religion are involved in the creation of new cultural models of gender, family, and definitions of personhood in southern Italy. Popular religionists and Pentecostals are found in close interaction within the same families, kin networks, and neighborhoods. The project will examine similarities and differences in these cultural models by studying domestic relations, healing performances, conversion accounts and life histories, and in the house shrines. Two principal investigators will conduct the research in two major urban centers of Sicily -- Palermo and Catania. In each field site participant-observation will be supplemented by survey analysis and oral historical methods, comparing Pentecostal church members, non-Pentecostal kin of church members, former members (dropouts) of the Pentecostal churches, and in a group of popular religionists without connections to Pentecostalism. This research is important because popular religion is an important force in most of the world's cultures, and understanding the dynamics of the relation between newer and older forms of popular religion will help us understand how religions wax and wane in importance.