AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Out of obscurity mormonism since 19453/21/2023 Rather than draw upon more traditional qualitative methods, such as interviews, I choose Photovoice, a participatory framework that could position participants as co-producers of knowledge. The methodology and methods for this study had to accommodate how knowledge is partial, socially situated, and grounded in experiences and differences ( Smith 1987). Finally, I argue that looking at the contradictions and compromises found in lived religion gives insights into how challenges and compliance to official religious teachings on gender are found in European Latter-day Saint lives. I then suggest a new gender role, guardian of the family, which is a gender role where European Latter-day Saint women are re-interpreting conservative Mormon gender roles to claim that providing for and nurturing their families is consistent with Church teachings. By looking at participants lived religion, I show the negotiations between Church teachings and host cultural norms that manifest as embodied practices can contest certain Mormon gender practices without destabilising the institutional structure. ![]() Therefore, studying the lived practices of religious individuals gives insights into how they engage with the wider community to construct everyday actions that make sense of their religious and cultural context ( Ammerman 2014 Harvey 2013 Orsi 2003). 13) sees lived religion as ‘embodied practices’, the way religious people translate doctrine into material reality through bodies, the ‘doing’ of religion, as well as the social meaning attached to practices. Sacralising of the home is a conceptualisation of how Mormon women in their everyday practices can create spaces that are simultaneously secular and sacred. I then discuss the extent to which implementing ‘Come, Follow Me’ is a ‘sacralising of the home’. To start, I will contextualise the dominant narratives around gender and cultural practices (Mormon or otherwise) by locating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the European landscape. By questioning the uniformity in experience between Latter-day Saint women broadens the understanding of gender constructs, roles, and practices and recognises expansive expressions of gendered religious lives. By offering a more expansive depiction of the daily practices of Latter-day Saint women, I show that at times negotiating religion, gender and cultural norms can mean they are de-emphasising Church institutional ideals of gender. As Church initiatives have shifted towards a more ‘home-centred, church-supported’ worship, this article draws upon the lived experiences of Latter-day Saint women in Greece, Sweden and England to gain insights into gender negotiations in the home. In the case of women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church teachings promote the uniformity of gender construction ( Sumerau and Cragun 2015), suggesting that Mormon construction of gender reproduces homogeneity between women while making it difficult for members to express diverse forms of gender in congregational spaces ( Petrey 2020). Religious institutions, practices and creed are instrumental in how gendered identities are constructed in private spaces, congregations, workplaces and the wider community, even more so in traditional Christian communities where women are arguably subject to greater gender inequality through patriarchal institutional structures and androcentric religious dogma ( Keysar 2014 Trzebiatowska and Bruce 2012). The domestic space then becomes instrumental in providing space for more nuanced, complex gender constructs that accommodate Mormon beliefs, cultural context and secular notions of gender without destabilising the institutional structure. Simultaneously, in conceptualising a gender role, the guardian of the family, I show the ways that European Latter-day Saint women are providing, protecting and nurturing their families. Looking at the implementation of ‘Come, Follow Me’ of sacralising of the home as a gendered practice, there appears to be a reinforcing of the primacy of the domestic space in the reproduction of religious practices and doctrinal instruction. This article draws upon the lived religion of Latter-day Saint women in Sweden, Greece and England to understand how they negotiate gender in their homes. In a religion where Church leaders still defend the idealised family structure of a stay-at-home mother and a father as the provider, the renewed emphasis on the domestic sphere as the site for Church teaching could also reinforce traditional Mormon gender roles. ![]() ![]() Instead, members were now asked to engage with ‘home-centred, church-supported’ religious instruction using the Church materials ‘Come, Follow Me’. Nelson informed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that the Church teaching curriculum would shift focus away from lessons taught on Sunday.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |