Religious Communities in the Virtual Age
Lead Research Organisation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Department Name: Manchester School of Art Research Centre
Abstract
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.
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.
Publications
Edelman, J.
(2023)
Religious Communities in the Virtual Age
Edelman, J.
(2024)
The Aesthetics of Online Worship
Lefebvre, S.
(2023)
Digital Innovation During Covid: Cross-National Insights
Ossai, E.
(2023)
Religious Communities in Post-Pandemic Britain
Vincent, A.
(2024)
Religion in the Digital Public Sphere
| Title | Granny Jackson's Dead |
| Description | An immersive theatre performance created by Big Telly Theatre Company in Northern Ireland, titled Granny Jackson's Dead, which was peformed as part of the NI Science Festival. It took the form of a fictional wake, and addressed issues of memory, technology, familiy, identity in the contemporary world. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | This was a resaerch projct, run jointly between Manchester Metropolitan University and the National Centre for Social Research, which aimed to capture an educated public dialgoue about grief and technology. We collected responses from the audience during and after this performance, and intend to publish our results in due course. But clearly, the performance led to a considerable public debate - in person, in the press, and online - on the ethics, practicality, and wisdom of the development of grief tech. |
| URL | https://padlet.com/EOK2021/granny-jackson-s-dead-a-project-about-death-memory-and-techn-quwnbdcovc6o... |
| Description | The project has explored the effects of the digital era on religious communities across Europe in terms of their sense of community, their ritual activities, their organisation, and their relationship with wider society. Our findings were complex and varied across comnunities, of course, but we did find that: -The digial age makes notions of identity and community belonging and shape more complex, where geographic borders and simple in-or-out models of membership no longer fully describe the shapes of communtiy. -The virtual age makes organising across boundaries of space, time and generation easier, but it also makes it harder for communities to avoid an online space that can be hostile, especially to minority groups. Many groups spend considerable time and resource curating their digital footprint, both to serve their own members' needs and to tailor how they are percieved in the public eye. -Digital tools can - but need not - shake up systems of authority, giving influence to those who have not traditionally held it for reasons of gender, age, or cultural or educational background. How these tools are used, and how easily they are taken up by different publics, have a great deal of effect on their use. -A sense of authenticity and engagement is important for digital rituals for them to be regarded as legitimate and effective by those who participate in them, and these senses are related to the aesthetics of these digital forms. |
| Exploitation Route | For academics, this represents an important and large data set on European religous practice in the virtual age, and contributes to theoretical and practical debates on the religious role in contemporary democratic society. For religious professionals, this material will help them better understand the challenges their communities face in the contemporary world and suggest better ways of addressing them. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Government Democracy and Justice |
| Description | Throughout the project, we have had strong engagement from religious groups and interfaith dialogue partners, as well as from fellow academics. The academics were particualrly interested in our contribution to the studies of digital religion, especially as a large-scale phenomenon and with smaller minority communities. The religous groups we worked with were, at one level, looking for tips and tricks for using the digital tools they had more effectively in seving their communities - whether that was about public communication, community organisation, ritual making, or building their interactions with a global diaspora. But others have taken our research as a prompt and impetus to think more deeply about the nature of religious life and religious community in a democracy in the digital era. The first group will find improvements in the short term in how they operate; the second group have the possibility of profoundly reorienting religious life in contemporary Europe in a healthier, more humane and practical direction. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal |
| Description | Big Telly Theatre Company |
| Organisation | Big Telly Theatre Company |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | As part of the interest in the digital funerals and others forms of virtual memorialisation developed in this project, we worked with Big Telly - one of Northern Ireland's leading theatre companies - to develop a project about technology and contemporary grief. We helped developed the project, advised on its composition, and set up a system to capture and anlayse the audience's reaction to it. This performaance, in February 2024, was very sucessful, and we are discussing further practice-based resaerch projects to explore these issues. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Big Telly Theatre Company created, developed and produced the theatrical performance which we used as a practice-based resaerch method to explore questions of grief tech and contemproary grief technology. If we develop this partnership further, we expect that they will develop this or other productions for similar reasons. |
| Impact | The performance of Granny Jackson's Dead has already taken place, but it has not yet been written up as an academic output. This is an inter-disciplinary output. The disciplines of theatre, religion, and social policy are involved. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Council of Christians and Jews |
| Organisation | Council of Christians and Jews |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We are working with the Council of Christians and Jews, one of the UK's leading interfaith bodies, to provide guidance and academic context to their ongoing interfaith partnership programmes, to share our findings with their members, and to provide educational sessions on ritual development to their members and associates. We are also exploring further partnership possibilities going forward. We are particularly working with them on the development of interfaith commemorations, such as for Holocaust Memorial Day. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The CCJ has helped us develop the contacts and relationships we need to conduct a genuinely interfaith and pan-British research project, ensuring that we can include as wide as possible a range of voices in our research. They have helped circulate our survey, facilitated case studies, and provided a member to our action research group. They have similarly been very useful in ensuring that our process and results are shared with as wide as possible a segment of the British religiosu communtiy. |
| Impact | None yet, but this will change shortly. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Interfaith Scotland |
| Organisation | Interfaith Scotland |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We are working with Interfaith Scotland to provide guidance to their leadership and educational sessions to their members, and, in particular, to help them develop their practical work in interfaith pilgrimage. The project has been helpful enough that the leader of Interfaith Scotland has joined our action research group. We are also exploring further partnership possibilities going forward. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Interfaith Scotland has helped us develop our relationships with faith communities across Scotland to ensure that our surveys, interviews and research group reflect a broad range of Scottish society. This engagement has meant that Scots are properly represented in our surveys, it has facilitated an important caase study on interfaith pilgrimage in Glasgow, and has led to representation from Scotland in the Action Research Group. |
| Impact | None yet, but they will come. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Blog posts from all team members published on the project website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The project's public facing website hosts a regularly updated blog, featuring observations and insights from the project members as well as invited contributors. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
| URL | https://recovira.org/research-updates/ |
| Description | Interfaith Scotland dialogue event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | A dialogue session with Interfaith Scotland, held in Glasgow, where the project's leaders presented its findings to leaders of religious communities across Scotland.. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://interfaithscotland.org/news/events/events-2024 |
| Description | Interview on Talking Point, a programme on United Christian Broadcasters UCB1 Radio |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Josh Edelman, the project lead, was invited to give an interview on Talking Point, a programme on United Christian Broadcasters UCB1 Radio to talk about the Recovira Project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Interview with Christian Today - Online Magazine - What is the digital impact of the pandemic on religious communities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An interview for Christian Today discussing the Recovira Project, which was published on their website. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.christiantoday.com/article/what.was.the.digital.impact.of.the.pandemic.on.religious.comm... |
| Description | Recovira Professional Feedback Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A professional feedback group comprising of representatives from our partner organisations as well members of the communities that are being studied. The Professional Feedback Group met in February 2024, and plans to meet again towards the end of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |