Pilgrimage as Earthbound Ritual Re-traditioning: Exploring Nidaros and Selja. The focus study for this group, to be undertaken by Marion Grau (Graduate Theological Union) with assistance from Jone Salomonsen (University of Oslo) examines the significance of the recent increase in pilgrimage travel in Europe as a reengagement with national Christian heritages, allowing for a renewed connection to nature, and a means of exploring spiritual and cultural roots. Pilgrimages to Nidaros and to Selje will be envisaged as ritual travels that help recapture cultural identities and ground communal practices open to ethnic and religious diversity.
Farmers and Pilgrims: Ritualizing New Relationships, Negotiating Cultural and Natural Pluralism. A comparative case study to be undertaken by Donna L. Seamone, in which pilgrimage-like activities are closely linked with issues of environment and food. Ethnographic research on eco/agri-tourist ventures in eastern Canada will focus on the ritualized practices they entail: farm vacations, farm markets and festivals, slow-food activities and permaculture.
Dressing Mother Nature. Earth keeping rituals and democracy in Southern Zimbabwe. Subproject to be undertaken by Tony Balcomb and assistant S. Chirongoma (University of Kwazulu-Natal), Extensive fieldwork and archival research will be used to investigate a reforestation and conservation initiative taking place in the Masvingo Province of Southern Zimbabwe. The “war of the trees”, as it has become known, is seen as part of the liberation from oppression, injustice, and exploitation and as part of a broader grassroots democratic movement (Chirongoma 2012) involving both Christians and practitioners of Indigenous Religion.
Kundum and Mother River Festivals in Rural Ghana. Subproject conducted by Samuel Etikpah (PhD at University of Oslo), in which the following question is addressed: How do community festivals and rituals become effective vehicles for generating inter-religious collaboration and peaceful-coexistence among Christians, Muslims and adherents of traditional religions?
Ceremonial dancing in emerging ritual practices. This subproject, undertaken by Michael Houseman (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes), will be studying dance empirically within the context of several Neo-pagan, New Age and Spiritual Development initiatives. This research aims to interrogate the qualities of collective dancing in contemporary contexts of ritual pluralization so as to evaluate its potential for the reconstitution of cultural patterns and for the mobilization of social change.
Changing the World. This subproject, undertaken by Morny Joy (University of Calgary), pertains to all the projects I, II and III. It aims at formulating the foundations for new insights in both philosophy of religion and theology that take into account shifts occurring in contemporary movements at the popular level of rituals and behaviour. Such movements mark a radical change in what could be called the Western symbolic universe. The goal here is to build a philosophy and theology of transformation and renewal, both informing and informed by the empirical findings of other subprojects that presupposes a re-enchantment of the world.