Feasting and fasting: The evidential character of material religion in secret police archives

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dc.contributor.authorKapalό, James A.
dc.contributor.editorKapaló, James A.
dc.contributor.editorPovedák, Kinga
dc.contributor.funderHorizon 2020en
dc.contributor.funderEuropean Research Councilen
dc.date.accessioned2021-05-17T10:34:25Z
dc.date.available2021-05-17T10:34:25Z
dc.date.issued2021-08-13
dc.date.updated2021-05-17T10:22:47Z
dc.descriptionThis research is part of the project Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: Hidden Galleries in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe. The project has received funding from the European Research 2020 research and innovation programme No. 677355.en
dc.description.abstractThis chapter explores the value of textual data on material religion in secret police files for contemporary research on religious transmission and ritual life during communism. Based on examples from an operation targeting Inochentist-Stilists in 1950s and 60s Romania, I highlight the significance of the numerous insider-informer surveillance reports that focus on the foodways of the community. Although not qualitatively the same as ethnographic sources, I view the reports composed by these informers, as “surrogates” of the performances that led to their creation allowing the researcher today to access material, spatial and somatic aspects of religion that are often overlooked in readings of secret police files. Through the presentation of a series of brief examples, I illustrate how alternative readings emerge when data on religion is taken seriously and not discounted simply as an reflection of the ideological vision of the regime. The data we find presented in the files invites us to question its evidential status, both at the time, as evidence of criminal or anti-state activity, and for the scholar of religion as evidence of religious practice, meaning and agency. I argue, that when viewed through a material lens and situated within a broader appreciation religious lifeworld and cultural context, the texts and images in the archives reveal aspects of the material aspects of the transmission of religion in the underground that remain relatively under-explored and little analysed.en
dc.description.statusNot peer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationKapalό, J. A. (2021) 'Feasting and Fasting: The Evidential Character of Material Religion in Secret Police Archives', in Kapaló, J. A. and Povedák, K. (eds)., The Secret Police and the Religious Underground in Communist and Post-Communist Eastern Europe, Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780429331466en
dc.identifier.doi10.4324/9780429331466
dc.identifier.endpage23en
dc.identifier.isbn9780367279998
dc.identifier.startpage1en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/11327
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherRoutledgeen
dc.relation.ispartofThe Secret Police and the Religious Underground in Communist and Post-Communist Eastern Europe
dc.relation.ispartofBook Series: Routledge Religion, Society and Government in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet States
dc.relation.projectinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020::ERC::ERC-STG/677355/EU/Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: ‘hidden galleries’ in the secret police archives in 20th Century Central and Eastern Europe/Hidden Galleriesen
dc.relation.urihttp://www.routledge.com/9780367279998
dc.rightsThis is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Secret Police and the Religious Underground in Communist and Post-Communist Eastern Europe on 13 August 2021, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9780367279998en
dc.subjectSecret policeen
dc.subjectCommunismen
dc.subjectEastern Europeen
dc.subjectReligionen
dc.subjectArchivesen
dc.titleFeasting and fasting: The evidential character of material religion in secret police archivesen
dc.typeBook chapteren
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