Emily Pierini
Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
PhD in Social Anthropology (University of Bristol) with a research on the experiences of spirit mediums in the Brazilian Spiritualist Christian Order Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn), which was awarded the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Sutasoma Award.
I have conducted ethnographic research in the temples of the Vale do Amanhecer (Brazil, Europe, and the US), in Afro-Brazilian religions (Brazil), and on Goddess Spirituality (UK and Italy). My work addresses spirit mediumship and possession, embodied knowledge, healing, religious experience and learning, body and self, emotions and senses, and transnational religions.
My Marie Skłodowska–Curie Global Fellowship project THETRANCE Transnational Healing: Therapeutic Trajectories in Spiritual Trance (grant agreement No 895395) (GA n. 895395) involved Sapienza University of Rome, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and University of Oxford. This research investigates therapeutic spiritual trance in a transnational perspective, analysing how people learn and narrate about spiritual trance, with what kinds of consistencies and differences across cultures, and how trance-based healing practices may be relevant for therapeutic purposes.
I am author of the book Jaguars of the Dawn: Spirit Mediumship in the Brazilian Vale do Amanhecer (2020, Berghahn), and co-editor with Alberto Groisman and Diana Espírito Santo of Other Worlds, Other Bodies: Embodied Epistemologies and Ethnographies of Healing (2023, Berghahn).
I coordinate the ‘HEAL - Network for the Ethnography of Healing’
Marie Curie Global Fellowship "THETRANCE - Transnational Trance: Therapeutic Trajectories in Spiritual Trance"
https://www.healnetwork.eu/projects1/thetrance
PhD in Social Anthropology (University of Bristol) with a research on the experiences of spirit mediums in the Brazilian Spiritualist Christian Order Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn), which was awarded the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Sutasoma Award.
I have conducted ethnographic research in the temples of the Vale do Amanhecer (Brazil, Europe, and the US), in Afro-Brazilian religions (Brazil), and on Goddess Spirituality (UK and Italy). My work addresses spirit mediumship and possession, embodied knowledge, healing, religious experience and learning, body and self, emotions and senses, and transnational religions.
My Marie Skłodowska–Curie Global Fellowship project THETRANCE Transnational Healing: Therapeutic Trajectories in Spiritual Trance (grant agreement No 895395) (GA n. 895395) involved Sapienza University of Rome, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and University of Oxford. This research investigates therapeutic spiritual trance in a transnational perspective, analysing how people learn and narrate about spiritual trance, with what kinds of consistencies and differences across cultures, and how trance-based healing practices may be relevant for therapeutic purposes.
I am author of the book Jaguars of the Dawn: Spirit Mediumship in the Brazilian Vale do Amanhecer (2020, Berghahn), and co-editor with Alberto Groisman and Diana Espírito Santo of Other Worlds, Other Bodies: Embodied Epistemologies and Ethnographies of Healing (2023, Berghahn).
I coordinate the ‘HEAL - Network for the Ethnography of Healing’
Marie Curie Global Fellowship "THETRANCE - Transnational Trance: Therapeutic Trajectories in Spiritual Trance"
https://www.healnetwork.eu/projects1/thetrance
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Books by Emily Pierini
Pierini, E., 2020, Jaguars of the Dawn: Spirit Mediumship in the Brazilian Vale do Amanhecer, New York; Oxford: Berghahn.
https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/PieriniJaguars
Papers by Emily Pierini
Pierini, E. 2016. Becoming a Jaguar: Spiritual Routes in the Vale do Amanhecer. In Bettina Schmidt and Steven Engler (eds). Handbook of Contemporary Religions in Brazil. Leiden: Brill, pp. 225-232.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fWgbDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=handbook+of+contemporary+religions+in+brazil&source=bl&ots=aS-xhAkCCt&sig=NhQJzVIHcISLuv8w3dKPjkvbVaI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixk9zFua3QAhXFCBoKHWj8CnMQ6AEINDAF#v=onepage&q=handbook%20of%20contemporary%20religions%20in%20brazil&f=false
Edited Journals by Emily Pierini
Conference Papers by Emily Pierini
Pierini, E., 2020, Jaguars of the Dawn: Spirit Mediumship in the Brazilian Vale do Amanhecer, New York; Oxford: Berghahn.
https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/PieriniJaguars
Pierini, E. 2016. Becoming a Jaguar: Spiritual Routes in the Vale do Amanhecer. In Bettina Schmidt and Steven Engler (eds). Handbook of Contemporary Religions in Brazil. Leiden: Brill, pp. 225-232.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fWgbDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=handbook+of+contemporary+religions+in+brazil&source=bl&ots=aS-xhAkCCt&sig=NhQJzVIHcISLuv8w3dKPjkvbVaI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixk9zFua3QAhXFCBoKHWj8CnMQ6AEINDAF#v=onepage&q=handbook%20of%20contemporary%20religions%20in%20brazil&f=false
Religious hybridism is here analysed as the product of an ongoing negotiation between the global and the local. In contexts in which cross-cultural contacts are intensifying, in the border zones in and between cultures, religious traditions find themselves interacting with one another and undergoing a process of transformation, often resulting in the production of new hybrid religious forms. Ritual performance is at the core of a process of re-semantisation. This analysis highlights how the process of globalisation produces transformation not only in religious systems, but also in contemporary religious experience within a context of religious pluralism.
Trance states, whether defined as mediumistic or spiritual, sit on the edge of different fields of study and domains of practice. As they are variable, they escape fixed categorizations and so they often lend themselves to clashing interpretations, often resulting in representational or pathological reductionism. Yet, healing practices based upon trance, meditation, visualization, or imagination are increasingly present in our societies entering the spheres of therapeutic pluralism as complementary or alternative therapies. In this conference, we explore ethnographic notions of trance along with healing practices considering the contexts of therapeutic pluralism and the more or less successful experiences of healing cooperation, as much as its hindrances.
The event is organized by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie project THETRANCE, the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, and the HEAL Network for the Ethnography of Healing. Funded by the European Union: This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 895395. Partner Universities: Sapienza University of Rome, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, University of Oxford
This workshop invites participants to unpack the ideas of movement, mobility, and being moved in healing practices. ‘Movement’ in the religious field can be intended as moving into or through religions or practices – whether developing or not commitment — or as converting one’s health condition. It can also be approached in terms of a transnational movement of people and practices, shaping new geographies of spiritual healing. At a phenomenological level, movement can be therapeutic and transformative, by putting processes and bodies into motion, such as being moved by spirits in trance. Whether transnational, transcendent, or transformative, we ask how movement shapes healing and vice-versa.
The event is organized by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie project THETRANCE, the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, and the HEAL Network for the Ethnography of Healing.
Funded by the European Union: This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 895395.
Partner Universities: Sapienza University of Rome, Federal University of Santa Catarina, University of Oxford
Marie Skłodowska-Curie THETRANCE
HEAL Network for the Ethnography of Healing www.healnetwork.eu
Postgraduate Program in Social Anthropology - Federal University of Santa Catarina
Funded by the European Union
DISCUSSION WITH THE FILMMAKERS
A Goddess in Motion: María Lionza in Barcelona
by Roger Canals
Caboclos Nkisis: A Territorialidade Banto no Brasil e em Cuba
by Ana Stela Cunha
Chaired by Emily Pierini
This workshop brings together two ethnographic films focusing upon trance and healing rituals in a transnational perspective: Maria Líonza’s rituals in Venezuela and Spain filmed by Roger Canals, and Caboclos Nkisis worship between Cuba and Brazil filmed by Ana Stela Cunha.
While addressing spiritual trance transnationally, these films raise a key theoretical issue of ethnographic film (and anthropology in general): how are the filmmaker’s body and technological devices the ethnographer uses during research involved within the ritual, thus, transforming it? And how may this subjectivity be reflected in the film during the editing process?
As filmmakers we know that we do not only film reality, but we transform it by filming it. So, how can our presence alter the development of the ritual? Can (or should) cinema intervene in the healing process (especially if it has a transnational dimension)?
In this regard, filming the manifestation of spirits in rituals often poses some ethical questions, such as: How do we get permission to film from human and non-human agents intervening in the ritual? And how do we visualize this "pact" with others in the film?
In methodological terms, both films have had to face technical challenges, such as filming when there is a lack of light, or when participants use substances that can damage technical devices. These challenges will be discussed during the session.
This workshop aims to offer a multi-perspective view upon trance and healing in visual ethnography by examining both its practice and the conceptual and ethical issues it addresses.
Live on YouTube PPG Antropologia UFSC https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2IUvuSURu6HefZ6ezBF3Q
Multilingual event.
For those interested in participating in the debate, please, register on Zoom:
https://uniroma1.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMkfu-rrDotG9apM9NKubh95_HnyfgAHQDO
Funded by the European Union
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship "THETRANCE-Transnational Healing: Therapeutic Trajectories in Spiritual Trance". This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 895395. Partner Universities: Sapienza University of Rome, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Instituto Brasil Plural.
Mediumship(s) and Health(s): Dialogues and Tensions
Roundtable discussion with anthropologists, psychologists, and spiritual therapists.
Organized by
Marie Skłodowska-Curie THETRANCE
HEAL Network for the Ethnography of Healing www.healnetwork.eu
Postgraduate Program in Social Anthropology - Federal University of Santa Catarina-UFSC
13 December 2021
LIVE BROADCAST: PPGAS UFSC YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2IUvuSURu6HefZ6ezBF3Q
Event in Portuguese and English
Register on Zoom for live translation and participation in the debate:
https://uniroma1.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMkfu-rrDotG9apM9NKubh95_HnyfgAHQDO
Questions for the roundtable discussion:
• How do mediumistic trance practices inform therapeutic experiences and health?
• How can we promote dialogue and communication between people who work in different fields of knowledge such as the sciences, humanities and religions?
• How and what kind of categories can intervene in the dialogue and communicability between different fields of knowledge?
Convenors: Emily Pierini (Sapienza University of Rome/UFSC), Alberto Groisman (UFSC), Vânia Cardoso (UFSC), Fernando Ciello (UFRR)
Funded by the European Union
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship "THETRANCE-Transnational Healing: Therapeutic Trajectories in Spiritual Trance". This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 895395.
Partner Universities: Sapienza University of Rome, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Instituto Brasil Plural, University of Oxford.
Intervengono:
Emily PIERINI (Università La Sapienza) – Traiettorie terapeutiche transnazionali e trance medianica nel Vale do Amanhecer (Progetto Marie Curie THETRANCE).
Denise LOMBARDI (Groupe Sociétés Religions Laïcité, Università di Torino) – Terapie convenzionali e spirituali nei percorsi di cura della salute mentale in Lorraine
- Assemblage: domestic altars may display personal, symbolic and inspirational objects that would not enter in the official altars of the temples. How are one's own codes of sacredness reconfigured within the domestic space? How have Covid-19 restrictions limited the access to materials and substances needed for the home practice? What strategies have people adopted to overcome these limitations (eg. home delivery)?
- Contamination/cleansing: how may house disinfection with alcohol-based products and spiritual cleansing by means of incense, candles, or different kinds of ritual food intertwine to protect the house, the body and the altar from the virus or spiritual substances? How would others see, enter or touch the sacred space?
- Relations: what kinds of relations are established or cultivated around the altar? Are personal relations based on conflict, coexistence, curiosity, openness, or possessiveness? Are spiritual relations sought by different ritual means? For instance, how would spiritual trance and other forms of bodily experience of the relation with spiritual beings be reconfigured at home? How can these relations be affected by virtual communication with other practitioners or religious authorities?
Long abstract: When ethnographers approach the plurality of spiritual manifestations and experiences of the people who participate in their research, they often note that these people recognise the existence of other worlds that may intersect or not with the so-called material or physical world. However, these other worlds are often approached as phenomena of 'culture' or the 'mind', questioning in this way these native ontologies. Many ethnographers end up reifying these experiences as 'symbolic'. The projection of personal experience onto a symbolic dimension may be the outcome of a resistance to embodying 'mysticism' in their lives or professional trajectories, which is a 'rationalist' way of approaching these other worlds from the standpoint of a science that seeks an epistemic homogeneity. A symptom of this resistance to 'mediumistic incorporation' and more generally to a phenomenon considered to be spiritual, are spiritual experiences categorised as 'paranormal'. Beyond being an ethnographic and methodological inconsistency, approaching the 'spiritual' as 'paranormal' reflects an epistemological resistance to recognising ontological multiplicity as a condition for ethnographic knowledge. This panel discusses how researchers may find ways to legitimately express their own experiences of embodiment in the 'academic field'-reflecting in particular upon 'epistemological embodiment', or how these experiences may impact their conceptions of science and knowledge and how they are produced. These reflections can make the dialogues and coexistence between researchers and their research participants more fluid, fruitful and symmetrical, as well as they may inform ethnographies able to tackle spiritual experiences which problematize conventionalisms and homogeneities. Abstract submission: https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easa2020/p/8645# Deadline: January 20th, 2020 This panel is an initiative of the Spirituality, Health, Embodiment, Ethnography Research Network (INCT Brasil Plural).
This meeting brings together people working in the field of health and spirituality to discuss experiences, projects, and expectations, particularly related to their ethnographic encounters. The debate will address, among others, questions such as the following: (a) native and analytical categories of 'belief' and 'experience', 'illness' and 'pathology', 'cosmology' and 'science'; b) the multiplicity of understandings of healing; c) how the participants deal with the diversity and tensions between different understandings of healing; d) relationships in the field: learning and experience, especially how participants are affected by the relationships and experiences during fieldwork.
Este Encontro tem como objetivo reunir pessoas que trabalham no campo da saúde e da espiritualidade para discutir experiências, projetos e expectativas, particularmente relacionadas aos seus encontros etnográficos. O debate abordará, entre outras, questões como as que seguem: a) as categorias nativas e analíticas de ‘crença’ e ‘experiência, ‘doença’ e ‘patologia’, 'cosmologia' e ‘ciência’; b) a multiplicidade de entendimentos da cura; c) como os participantes lidam com a diversidade e as tensões entre entendimentos da cura; d) as relações na pesquisa de campo: aprendizagem e experiência, especialmente como os participantes são afetados pelas relações e experiências durante pesquisa de campo.
In order to delve into this field, we invite contributions grounded in ethnographic research focussing upon the relationship between religion and spirituality in the social contexts of everyday life, and that stress a methodological reflection upon the status of ethnography in the study of lived religion and spirituality.
Some of the areas around which this theme can be developed are:
- spirituality and religion in everyday life
- spirituality and gender
- body, emotions and spirituality
- the perceptive dimension in the experience of the sacred
- health, wellbeing and spirituality
- spirituality and the notion of personhood
- creative expressions of the religious in secular contexts
- the ethnography of spirituality: how the ethnographer perceives the experiences of others
This session raises questions about the bodily involvement of researchers working with religious experiences. Papers may discuss the methodological implications of the body in the field and the ways in which to convey these experiences through ethnography, by addressing the empirical, ethical, epistemological and analytical implications of this significant aspect of fieldwork.
This panel will explore ethnographic approaches to relations between individual personhood, material and immaterial forms of existence.
http://afterliferesearch.weebly.com/iuaes-2013-congress.html
Affondando le radici nel contatto fra religioni, esso assume dimensioni diverse a seconda degli ambienti di estensione e presenta anche una diversa durata e complessità a seconda dei contesti istituzionali chiamati a gestirne l’articolazione.
Questo libro raccoglie una serie di studi interdisciplinari per approfondire
aspetti diversi del campo del pluralismo religioso. L’idea di “definizione” non si dispiega in senso classificatorio e morfologico, bensì in quello di elaborazione del campo di azione e rappresentazione della diversità religiosa. L’intento complessivo consiste nel sollecitare una maggiore consapevolezza tematica e programmatica intorno ad alcune questioni di grande rilievo, tanto per lo studio delle religioni del passato quanto per la riflessione sul presente.