Pastoral Care with Traveling Showmen. Life-World and Religious Interpretation of the Reality of 'People on the Move'

本计划的目的是为巡回演出的牧养创造一种实用的神学。与表演者的教牧关怀是实践神学的一个领域，几乎没有研究过。生活世界的特殊条件和表演者的宗教需求既没有被方法论地观察到，也没有在教牧关怀理论中被考虑到。在科学上，只有在实证的基础上，才能不依赖于直觉和零零碎碎的实践知识，创造出一种适合于表演者特定生活世界的概念方法，迫切需要一种基于坚实研究的表演者牧养理论。本研究项目的核心和新颖之处在于，基于对表演者典型的生活世界和成人仪式的宗教解释的定性实证调查，对表演者的生活世界和“生活宗教”的感知、描述和解释。我们将调查和解释期望、态度（等级的相关性）以及教会及其代表（牧养者/精神咨询师）在描述与机构关系中的动机。我们希望我们的发现也能激励其他领域的研究。一方面，牧灵关怀理论将通过一个具有生活世界特征的示范牧灵关怀实践神学获得重要的推动力，该研究项目有助于将社会学视角融入到牧灵学中。另一方面，研究结果将与其他社会群体的生活宗教范例相关，这些群体也以特定的宗教流动生活方式为特征。除了获得对教牧关怀的重要见解外，我们还希望获得对教会理论有价值的知识，即关于生活在可移动结构中的社会群体的宗教社会性。这很有趣，因为据观察，参加教区组织的会众给那些生活方式需要流动的人带来了困难。因此，我们期望我们的研究也能为流动性与教会组织关系的问题提供前景。对这一社会群体的生活世界进行实证调查，对于超出我们具体研究项目范围的实践神学和文化研究来说是很有趣的；这个特殊的小组提供了探索宗教态度和实践，流动性和教会承诺相关性的关系的可能性。

The aim of this project is to create a practical theology for the pastoral care with traveling showmen. Pastoral care with showmen is an area of practical theology that has barely been researched yet. The particular conditions of the life-world and the religious needs of showmen has neither been observed methodologically nor have they been considered in the theory of pastoral care. Scientifically, a theory of pastoral care with showmen based on solid research is urgently needed since only an empirical foundation can create an approach whose concept is appropriate to the particular life-world of showmen without having to rely on intuition and handed down fragmentary practical knowledge. Centerpiece and novelty of the research project are the perceptions, descriptions and interpretations of the life-world and 'lived religion' of showmen based upon qualitative empirical surveys of religious interpretations with an affinity to life-world and rites of passage typical to showmen. We will survey and interpret expectations, attitudes (relevance of hierarchy) and motives in characterizations of the relationship to institutions by the church and their representatives (pastoral caregivers/spiritual counselors).We expect our findings to motivate research in other areas, as well. On the one hand, the theory of pastoral care will gain significant impulses by an exemplary practical theology of pastoral care with showmen characterized by their life-world: The research project contributes to integrating sociological perspectives into poimenics. On the other hand, the research results will be exemplarily relevant to lived religion of other social groups that are also characterized by a specific religiously ambulatory lifestyle. Besides getting insights important to pastoral care, we also expect to gain knowledge valuable to church theory, i.e. about the religious sociality of social groups who live in movable structures. This is interesting because it has been observed that participating in a parochial organized congregation poses difficulties for people whose lifestyle requires mobility from them. Thus, we expect our research to also offer prospects concerning the question on the relationship between mobility and church organization. An empirical survey of the life-world of this social group is interesting for practical theology as well as cultural studies beyond the scope of our specific research project; this special group offers the possibility to explore the relationship of religious attitude and practices, mobility, and the relevance of church commitment.