Sonya Sharma

Practicing the Awareness of Embodiment in Qualitative Health Research: Methodological Reflections

Although the importance of the researcher’s embodiment has been noted in health and social sciences research, in many instances, more attention has been paid to the embodiment of the researched. Thus, more in-depth analysis of the embodied researcher can illuminate qualitative inquiry. The influence of the embodied researcher became visible in a recent critical ethnographic study examining the negotiation of religious, spiritual, and cultural plurality in health care. In this article, we do not present research findings per se, but rather methodological reflections. As researchers, we highlight emotional and bodily ways of knowing and experiences of difference such as culture, race, and religion as embodied and a part of researcher—participant encounters. We aim to elucidate the awareness of being embodied researchers, and with this elucidation, we consider implications for knowledge generation for health and social sciences.

Challenging ‘Belief’ and the Evangelical Bias: Student Christianity in English Universities

Abstract Popular and academic accounts of university-based religion tend to privilege evangelical Christianity, presented as a morally conservative, conversionist movement at odds with university contexts, which are widely assumed to be vehicles for a progressive Western modernity. This is especially the case in the UK, given the association of higher education with secularisation, yet virtually no research has studied this interface by examining the lives of students. This article discusses findings from the three-year project “Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England”, including a nation-wide survey of undergraduate students, in examining how the experience of university shapes on-campus expressions of Christian identity. We argue that a sizeable constituency of undergraduates self-identify as ‘Christian’, but evangelicals emerge not as the dominant majority, but as a vocal minority. The emerging internal complexity is masked by a public discourse that conceives of religion in terms of propositional belief and presents evangelicalism as its pre-eminent form.

Expressions of Prayer in Residential Care Homes

Although the value of spiritual care in the care of older adults is supported by research, few studies have focused specifically on prayer in residential care settings. This ethnographic study with fifteen chaplains and administrators in eleven residential care homes involved analyses of walking interviews and research diaries. Findings revealed the spaces in which prayer happens and the forms it takes. The identities of chaplains—their own spiritual practices, religious beliefs, and positioning within the facility—shaped their dis/comfort with prayer and how they located prayer within public and private spaces. Where organizational leadership endorsed the legitimacy of chaplaincy services, prayer was more likely to be offered. Even in these circumstances, however, religious diversity and questions about secularism left chaplains ambivalent about the appropriateness of prayer. The results demonstrate the relevance of religion and spirituality to residential care, and illustrate how prayer functions as an opportunity for connection and understanding.

‘The Elephant on the Table’: Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Home Health Services

Healthcare services are increasingly being provided in the home. At the same time, these home contexts are changing as global migration has brought unprecedented diversity both in the recipients of care, and home health workers. In this paper, we present findings of a Canadian study that examined the negotiation of religious and ethnic plurality in home health. Qualitative analysis of the data from interviews and observations with 46 participants—clients, administrators, home healthcare workers—revealed how religion is expressed and ‘managed’ in home health services.

Families and Faith: How Religion is Passed down across Generations

Reformation were those which supported one claimant and the ones which remained Catholic supported the other. Finally, in 1417, the schism was ended and Martin V was elected, a member of a Roman family, the Colonnas, which still owns substantial property in Rome. Chapter 4 is titled “Early Modern Catholicism” rather than ‘The Counter Reformation’. Looking back over the centuries, the author sees the Reformation as a lamentable period, which nevertheless became a new and creative beginning rather than a defeat. In the early sixteenth century, the Council Lateran V closed (in 1517) and reported “with eerie unawareness” to Pope Leo X that “no topics remained for them to discuss and that over several months nothing at all had been brought before them” (167). That year saw the 95 theses of Martin Luther nailed to a church door in Wittenberg. The wars of religion eventually ensued. No doubt economics and rising nationalism played their part and it has to be understood that in those days ‘campaigning’ was what kings did in the summer months. The Catholic Church responded to the new criticisms and threats with a certain self-examination in the long-sitting Council of Trent. Blocked off in the North, she turned her energies outwards to the New World with extraordinary success, in most cases following the sword of colonising Catholic European powers. Here the massive expansion in numbers began. For all the consequences of celibacy, it is inconceivable that the Catholic Church could have become a truly global religion that it is without its tens of thousand of fully dedicated men and women. Chapter 5 deals with the difficulties for the Church in the Western world, which continued to abound and caused it, in the nineteenth century, to react defensively and negatively to the new trends of thought. But, in the twentieth century, as a consequence of gathering so many different peoples in the fold, Vatican II showed a new and more open spirit to the world. It is worth remarking that scandals arose in almost every generation. What could have been more alienating to the people of Prague than that John Hus, their favourite preacher, was offered safe conduct to Italy in order to defend himself against his denunciation and then burned at the stake without being heard. Yet, the Roman Catholic Church is by far the most successful supranational, supra-racial, solidly united religious organisation in human history. Wikipedia states that, in 2010, the Church’s Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers said that the Church manages 26% of the world’s healthcare facilities. Its schools and universities are renowned and trusted across the world. With its history of 2,000 years and membership running at roughly 17% of the human race, its success bears testimony to its ability to meet deep human need. The phenomenon that is the Catholic Church needs many disciplines for its explanation. Tanner is an historian and the secular study of history is second nature to him. He is also a Jesuit so it is understandable that he refers to Providence and immaterial influences as causative factors in this extraordinary and illuminating history.

A Lateral Reading of Religion: Christianity in Sister Relationships

Abstract Sociologists of religion continue to give precedence to parent–child transmission in studies on religion and family. In doing so, other kinds of family relationships that also influence religious beliefs and practices remain in the background. In this article, instead of using a vertical lens, religion in the family is approached through a lateral reading of sisters’ religious lives. Drawing on 13 biographical accounts, which included family diagrams and time-lines, conducted with adult women who identified as sisters and as Christian, this article examines the intersection of religion with practices of intimacy and social context. By looking laterally, this article explores the mutual shaping of religion and sibling ties and gives recommendations for the way this under-researched area can expand the sociological study of religion within families.

Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality: Ethnographic Approaches

of spiritual gifts largely accounts for the growth of Pentecostalism (an argument cognate with Martin Lindhardt’s recent analysis of Pentecostal ritual). While Kay’s essay is a discursive reflection drawing on personal observation, Poloma and Lee use research data, much of it their own, to document the role of prophecy and prophetic prayer as an engine of Pentecostal growth. The book ends with a Conclusion by Miller recapitulating the arguments in each section. There is surprisingly little in this book that is not already familiar to scholars of Pentecostalism, despite the new research. Its most original feature is the demographic data in the appendices, but while that underscores the preponderant bulk of the charismatic constituency within the ‘renewalist’ category, the substantive chapters tend to focus on Pentecostalism in its institutionally distinctive form. Perhaps a section on what distinguishes Pentecostal from charismatic constituencies might have been illuminating.