Religious Communities in the Virtual Age

虚拟时代的宗教团体

• 批准号: AH/X005992/1
• 负责人: Joshua Edelman
• 金额: $ 48.63万
• 依托单位: Manchester Metropolitan University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX005992%2F1
• 关键词: Religious; Communities; Virtual; Age

While, historically, religious life has been something of a refuge from the digitalisation of society, the COVID-19 pandemic changed that. The social restrictions imposed by the pandemic rapidly accelerated religious communities' embrace of digital tools and structures in order to continue their essential social and psychological work during this crisis. As our preliminary research has shown, these developments have opened up new and productive possibilities for how European religion is done, and so these developments are likely to persist long after the pandemic has ended.But exactly what the consequences of this rapid digitalisation of religious life in Europe will be, for majority and minority traditions, requires further research. How will issues such as religious authority, community belonging and membership, the (digital) sense of sacred place, the making of meaningful and affectively potent rituals, and the relationship of religious communities to the wider public sphere change when those communities exist primarily, or even completely, in the digital realm?This project brings together scholars from seven European countries with backgrounds in the sociology of religion, anthropology, digital religion, performance studies, and allied disciplines to address these questions. The primary method will be ethnography, including both traditional and digital methods. We will conduct ethnographic research on mainstream, long-established minority, and emergent or newly-built religious communities in our countries in a way that facilitates both ethnographic depth and international comparability. To supplement this, we will (a) review and analyse large-scale social surveys of European experience of and engagement with religion and the digital, (b) conduct a social and broadcast media analysis of changing coverage of religion in response to the pandemic, and (c) conduct an aesthetic analysis of online and hybrid rituals with the tools of performance studies.

虽然从历史上看，宗教生活一直是社会数字化的避难所，但COVID-19疫情改变了这一点。这一流行病造成的社会限制迅速加速了宗教社区对数字化工具和结构的接受，以便在这场危机期间继续开展其重要的社会和心理工作。正如我们的初步研究所显示的那样，这些发展为欧洲宗教的运作方式开辟了新的、富有成效的可能性，因此这些发展可能会在疫情结束后持续很长一段时间。但欧洲宗教生活的这种快速数字化究竟会对多数派和少数派传统产生什么影响，还需要进一步研究。宗教权威、社区归属感和成员资格、（数字）圣地感、有意义和有影响力的仪式的制作以及宗教社区与更广泛的公共领域的关系等问题将如何改变，当这些社区主要甚至完全存在于数字领域时？该项目汇集了来自七个欧洲国家的学者，他们具有宗教社会学，人类学，数字宗教，表演研究和相关学科的背景，以解决这些问题。主要方法将是民族志，包括传统和数字方法。我们将对我们各国的主流、历史悠久的少数民族和新兴或新建的宗教社区进行民族志研究，以促进民族志的深度和国际可比性。作为补充，我们将（a）审查和分析欧洲在宗教和数字化方面的经验和参与的大规模社会调查，（B）对应对这一流行病而不断变化的宗教报道进行社会和广播媒体分析，（c）利用性能研究工具对在线和混合仪式进行美学分析。