AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OFKristie Perry for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Sociology, presented on April 08, 2020, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.TITLE: AFRICAN AMERICAN DENOMINATIONAL MOBILITY: THE IMPACT OF STATUS, FAMILIAL FACTORS, AND GENDER MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Darren E. SherkatReligion has been an important institution for African Americans, and for much of history was the only institution they controlled, making it a central part of African American life. African American families have relied on the church as an important source of social, economic, and familial support. Lincoln and Mamiya (1990) maintained that the black church reflected concerns of a generation less interested in assimilation which was later defined as the “black sacred cosmos”. In contrast, Frazier (1964) believed the post-Civil War Black Church furthered the process of acculturation within the larger structure and promoted social mobility. Frazier predicted status differences would eventually lead to variations in religious preferences with upper classes gravitating toward more worldly religious goods. Little is known about how gender differences and ethnicity influence religious mobility identification and participation. This dissertation examined trends, patterns, and predictors of denominational mobility, by demographic, gender, cohort, and geography. This study also juxtaposed Lincoln and Mamiya’s Black Sacred Cosmos with Frazier and Glenn’s status basis of denominationalism. Using the 1972-2018 General Social Survey (GSS) dataset, the research assed patterns of mobility across birth cohorts and gender-based influences on denominational mobility. Findings suggest that for African American women the Black Sacred Cosmo may remain.

The relationship between the chief Israelite deity Yahweh and his people is often figured in terms of the so-called ‘marriage metaphor’, by which Yahweh is husband and Israel wife. The sexual language used to describe Yahweh’s body and his attitude towards Israel is taken to be a convenient method to outline the thoughts, feelings and expectations Yahweh has of his people in terms of religious practice. However, this has led to various interpretations in which divine sexuality in itself has been labelled ‘pagan’, an activity which Yahweh supposedly ‘transcends’. The aim of this thesis is to question these interpretations. In the first part, an examination of other ancient West Asian literature from Sumer, Ugarit and Egypt, each depicting divine sexuality in stark terms, is completed in order to set a historical mark by which the biblical texts themselves can be judged. In the second, a selection of biblical passages is examined: some from the texts which are structured by the marriage metaphor (as from Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah) and others not (texts about bones, temples, urination, circumcision and loins). Ultimately, one discovers that Yahweh is in fact embroiled within sexuality, whether in the marriage metaphor or not, rather than transcendent above it and that Yahweh’s body, described in heavily masculine terminology throughout the Bible, while indeed sexualized, phallic and perhaps even penised, is nevertheless, ambiguous, liminal or ‘multigendered’ as to the features of his body. It is argued that this does not impede Yahweh’s masculinity but may even work to strengthen it.

Based on an ethnography conducted between 2013-2015 within a religious community in Brazil, this thesis investigates the meanings of a growing worldwide religious movement fusing beliefs and identity claims deriving from Judaism and Charismatic Evangelicalism. Unlike Messianic Judaism, where Jewish-born people identified as believers in Jesus remain faithful to their Jewish traditions while observing Charismatic Evangelical practices or Christian Zionism, Evangelicals who emphasise the theological and eschatological importance of Jews living in Israel, this thesis addresses a different dimension of this trend. Focusing particularly on women's conversion narratives, this study investigates the reasons why Charismatic Evangelical Brazilians are actively embracing a version of Judaism that requires them to follow the strict dress codes and purity laws of Orthodox Jews while believing in Jesus as the Messiah. My analysis concluded that the emergence of these communities should be understood as a revival aiming to restore some Charismatic Evangelical practices. Pointing to the moral permissiveness, materialism, individualism, and petitionary rhetoric enforced in their former Charismatic Evangelical churches-influenced by Neo-Pentecostal tenets-they embrace an austere religious style characterised by self- cultivation centred in Jewish ritual and ethos. This pious revival also involves recovering a collective past. References to a hidden Jewish heritage and a 'return' to Judaism are mobilised for justifying the community's strict adherence to Jewish practices. Drawing upon a socio-cultural and gender-sensitive analysis, this study examines the historical, religious and subjective reasons behind this emerging 'Judaising' trend in Charismatic Evangelicalism. This thesis also engages with the literature of religious conversion, morality, cultural change and debates examining hybridisation processes.

This dissertation examines the discursive production of mudang, also known as shamans, during the late Chosŏn Dynasty (eighteenth to nineteenth-centuries) and during the Japanese colonial period in Korea (1910-1945). The many discursive sites on mudang articulated various types of difference, often based on gender and urban/rural divides. This dissertation explores four bodies of work: eighteenth to nineteenth-century neo-Confucian reformist essays, late nineteenth-century western surveys of Korea, early twentieth-century newspapers and journals, and early ethnographic studies. The mudang was used throughout this period to reinforce gendered distinctions, prescribe spatial hierarchies, and promote capitalist modernity. In particular, institutional developments in shamanism studies under colonial rule, coupled with an expanded print media critique against mudang, signalled the needs and desires to pronounce a distinct indigenous identity under foreign rule. Chapter one traces three pre-colonial discursive developments, Russian research on Siberian shamanism under Catherine the Great, neo-Confucian writings on "mudang," and Claude Charles Dallet’s late nineteenth-century survey of Korean indigenous practices. Chapter Two examines the last decade of the nineteenth-century, studying the simultaneous emergence of Isabella Bird Bishop’s expanded discussion on Korean shamanism alongside early Korean newspapers’ social criticisms of mudang. Chapter Three looks at Korean newspapers and journals as the source and product of an urban discourse from 1920-1940. Chapter Four examines the same print media to consider why mudang were contrasted from women as ethical household consumers and scientific homemakers. Chapter Five looks at Ch’oe Nam-sŏn and Yi Nŭng-hwa’s 1927 treatises on Korean shamanism as a celebration of ethnic identity which became a form of intervention in an environment where Korean shamanism was used to justify colonial rule.

This dissertation examines the discursive production of mudang, also known as shamans, during the late Chosŏn Dynasty (eighteenth to nineteenth-centuries) and during the Japanese colonial period in Korea (1910-1945). The many discursive sites on mudang articulated various types of difference, often based on gender and urban/rural divides. This dissertation explores four bodies of work: eighteenth to nineteenth-century neo-Confucian reformist essays, late nineteenth-century western surveys of Korea, early twentieth-century newspapers and journals, and early ethnographic studies. The mudang was used throughout this period to reinforce gendered distinctions, prescribe spatial hierarchies, and promote capitalist modernity. In particular, institutional developments in shamanism studies under colonial rule, coupled with an expanded print media critique against mudang, signalled the needs and desires to pronounce a distinct indigenous identity under foreign rule. Chapter one traces three pre-colonial discursive developments, Russian research on Siberian shamanism under Catherine the Great, neo-Confucian writings on "mudang," and Claude Charles Dallet’s late nineteenth-century survey of Korean indigenous practices. Chapter Two examines the last decade of the nineteenth-century, studying the simultaneous emergence of Isabella Bird Bishop’s expanded discussion on Korean shamanism alongside early Korean newspapers’ social criticisms of mudang. Chapter Three looks at Korean newspapers and journals as the source and product of an urban discourse from 1920-1940. Chapter Four examines the same print media to consider why mudang were contrasted from women as ethical household consumers and scientific homemakers. Chapter Five looks at Ch’oe Nam-sŏn and Yi Nŭng-hwa’s 1927 treatises on Korean shamanism as a celebration of ethnic identity which became a form of intervention in an environment where Korean shamanism was used to justify colonial rule.

<p>U etniĉkoj grupi Banatskih Bugara, u Srbiji,<br />Rumuniji i Bugarskoj, rodni odnosi su predmet<br />kontinuiranih transformacija. Pružajući doprinos<br />prouĉavanjima identiteta ţena iz manjinskih<br />etniĉkih grupa, kao i komparativnom prouĉavanju<br />etniciteta u zemljama koje dele sliĉne dru&scaron;tvenopolitiĉke<br />okolnosti socijalizma i postsocijalizma,<br />ovo istraživanje ima za cilj da utvrdi na koje<br />naĉine Banatske Bugarke u razliĉitim<br />dru&scaron;tvenim kontekstima, oblikuju rodni,<br />etniĉki i religijski identitet. Kako su jezik i<br />religija dva najznaĉajnija dru&scaron;tvena i politiĉka<br />domena kulturne razlike u modernom svetu, a<br />rodni identiteti ne deluju nezavisno, već u<br />sadejstvu sa drugim identitetima, intersekciju<br />rodnih identiteta sa etniĉkim i religijskim<br />posmatram sa stanovi&scaron;ta oĉuvanja identiteta<br />grupe. Analizama položaja žena u javnoj sferi<br />života posvećuje se znaĉajnija pažnja, a<br />zanemaruju se rodni odnosi u privatnoj sferi<br />života, posebno brojĉano malih etniĉkih grupa.<br />Privatna sfera života je, međutim, znaĉajna, jer<br />rodni identiteti u ovoj sferi utiĉu na<br />oblikovanje etniĉkog i religijskog ideniteta i na<br />njihovu intersekciju. Reĉ je o regionu sa<br />razliĉitim istorijskim iskustvima i tradicijama<br />multikulturalizma i koji se odlikuje ĉestim<br />promenama državnih granica. Kontekstualni<br />okvir analize, pored rodnih režima, ĉine<br />potiskivanje religije u socijalizmu, te<br />afirmacija etniĉkih i religijskih identiteta u<br />postsocijalizmu. Akcenat istraživanja je na<br />ženama, ali da bi analiza intersekcije bila<br />celovita, u ovom etnografskom istraţivanju,<br />zastupljeni su i mu&scaron;karci. Ukupno je 51 osoba<br />u osnovnom uzorku, od ĉega, 31 žena i 20<br />mu&scaron;karca. Rezultati pokazuju zadržavanje<br />patrijarhalnih rodnih odnosa u privatnoj sferi<br />života u seoskim okruženjima, uz izuzetak<br />Bugarske, u pojedinim aspektima. Intersekcije<br />identiteta se razlikuju u odnosu na<br />kontekstualne karakteristike Srbije, Rumunije i&nbsp;</p><p>Bugarske i zavise od vi&scaron;estrukih povezanosti<br />na relaciji privatna/javna sfera: od mogućnosti<br />upotrebe maternjeg jezika, karakteristika<br />etniĉki i religijski me&scaron;ovitih brakova i<br />porodica, te od rodnih razlika u religioznosti.<br />Najveći uticaj na oĉuvanje identiteta imaju<br />rodni identiteti žena, jer one socijalizaciju decu<br />i prenose etniĉki i religijski identitet u sledećoj<br />generaciji. Po&scaron;to su žene religioznije od<br />mu&scaron;karaca u sve tri države, veći stepen<br />religioznosti je u pozitivnoj korelaciji sa<br />oĉuvanjem i etniĉkog i religijskog identiteta, u<br />kontekstu etnifikovane crkve. Uloge<br />mu&scaron;karaca u oĉuvanju identiteta, nalaze se u<br />javnoj sferi života i one su omogućene rodnom<br />podelom rada u privatnoj sferi ţivota. U<br />postsocijalizmu, u kontekstu desekularizacije i<br />afirmacije jezika i etniĉkog identiteta, mu&scaron;karci<br />su zastupljeniji u javnim ulogama, ali se beleži<br />postepena transformacija rodnih odnosa u<br />pravcu veće egalitarnosti, posebno u mlađoj<br />generaciji u uzorku, u urbanom okruženju i kod<br />osoba sa većim stepenom obrazovanja.</p> / <p>Gender relations within the ethnic group of<br />Banat Bulgarians have been a subject of<br />transformation in Serbia, Romania and<br />Bulgaria, both during the socialist as well as<br />during the post-socialist period. By<br />contributing to the study of female identity in<br />minority ethnic groups as well as to the<br />comparative study of ethnicity in countries<br />which have similar social and political<br />circumstances in light of socialism and postsocialism,<br />this thesis aims at determining the<br />manner in which the Banat Bulgarian women<br />in different political and social contexts shape<br />and define their gender, ethnic and religious<br />identity. Given the fact that the religion and<br />language are the two most significant social<br />and political domains in terms of cultural<br />differences in the modern world and that the<br />gender identities do not act independently, but<br />rather in conjunction with other identities the<br />intersection of the gender identity and the<br />ethnic and religious identity is observed from<br />the perspective of fostering and preserving the<br />identity of the group. While much focus has<br />been put on the analyses regarding the status of<br />women in the public sphere, the gender<br />relations in the private sphere in smaller ethnic<br />groups still remain under-researched. The<br />private sphere is very important since the<br />gender identities affect the shaping of the<br />ethnic and religious identity and their<br />intersection. This region has a plethora of<br />diverse historical experiences and multicultural<br />traditions and is often characterized by changes<br />in state borders. The contextual framework of<br />the analyses, in addition to gender regimes,<br />includes suppression of religion as well as the<br />affirmation of ethnic and religious identities in<br />post-socialism. Even though the focus of the<br />research was women, in order to make a<br />comprehensive analysis of the intersection, this</p><p>research also included men. The research<br />included 51 interviewees (31 women and 20<br />men). The results indicate a preservation of<br />patriarchal gender relations in the private<br />sphere in rural areas, with the exception of<br />Bulgari, in specific aspects. The identity<br />intersections differ in relation to contextual<br />differences between Serbia, Romania and<br />Bulgaria and mostly depend on multi-faceted<br />connections between the private and the public<br />sphere e.g. the use of the mother tongue,<br />characteristics of ethnically and religiously<br />mixed marriages and families as well as gender<br />differences in religiousness. The female gender<br />identity has the greatest impact on the<br />preservation of an identity i.e. the women<br />socialise their children and carry on their<br />ethnic and religious identity. Since women are<br />more religious in all three countries, the greater<br />degree of religiousness is in positive<br />correlation with the preserving of the ethnic<br />and religious identity, in the context of an<br />ethnically-specific church. Male roles<br />regarding the preservation of identity belong to<br />the public sphere. In post-socialism, in the<br />context of de-secularisation, the state enables<br />and promotes the affirmation of language and<br />ethnic identity. Men have more prominent<br />public roles, however the transformation of<br />gender relations slowly shifts towards equality<br />is noticeable, especially among the younger<br />generations in the sample, in urban areas and<br />among persons with a higher degree of<br />education.</p>

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:38:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2221.pdf: 3268237 bytes, checksum: 1c605c2aa638816a11dbcb198811a693 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-09-04 / The present work aims to analyze women practices that seek to change their social conditions and achieve new status within social conventions. Through relational and historical analysis of gender, the object of this study is to detect to what extent these women practices break the current patriarchal system and to what extent they reproduce it. Working through oral history methodology, this research tries to identify the circumstances and power mechanisms that they utilize to fight racial, class, age and gender social discrimination. In a specific cultural, historical context, this study raises some points to ponder in order to understand on the one hand, the effective decision power that they exert and identify space and social status that they have conquered throughout time and, on the other hand, the religious discourse power upon the legitimation of gender power subordination relations. / A presente pesquisa propõe analisar as práticas de mulheres que buscam transformar suas condições sociais e conquistar novos status no interior das convenções sociais. Por intermédio da análise relacional e histórica da categoria gênero, a pesquisa pretende detectar até que ponto as práticas das mulheres rompem com o sistema patriarcal vigente e até que ponto o reproduzem. Por meio da metodologia da história oral, a pesquisa busca identificar as circunstâncias e os mecanismos de poder que elas utilizam para resistirem às discriminações sociais de raça, classe, idade e gênero. Num contexto históricocultural preciso, o estudo levanta alguns pontos de reflexão a fim de compreender por um lado, o efetivo poder de decisão que elas exercem e identificar os novos espaços e status sociais que conquistaram ao longo do tempo e, por outro lado, a força do discurso religioso sobre a legitimação das relações de poder-subordinação de gênero.

yes / A new legal framework has been developed in Great Britain over the last ten years which protects individuals against unfair treatment on the grounds of their religion or belief. This framework regards all the major faith groups, secular belief systems (such as Humanism or Atheism), and non-belief on formally equal terms. There has also been a rapid growth of research interest in religion/belief in contemporary scholarship on equalities. This report provides a critical overview of this extensive research base relating mainly to England, Scotland and Wales up until 2008.

The study describes the counselling journey undertaken with 270 patients at the Family Medicine Clinic at Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville, Tshwane, between June 2000 and December 2003. Of these patients 75% were women, 74% were black and 97% Christian, with half of them belonging to born-again churches. A majority of the patients (52%) were unemployed and the others employed in minimum salary jobs. A third of the patients had attemped suicide at least once before, and a third had lost at least one close family member. With these patients a narrative pastoral counselling practice was established. Narrative counselling was practised as a MEET process in which the patients' problem-saturated stories were mapped and their problems externalised; they were empowered through the deconstruction of religious problem discourses, and their alternative stories were thickened by means of religious practices. This was a pastoral practice with a focus on religious discourses as problem discourses, and on the deconstruction of these discourses towards alternatives stories of faith. The first aim of the study was to describe the faces of religious problem discourses. They are (1) power discourses that hold patients captive in divinely sanctions hierarchies of gender and class, (2) body discourses that alienated patients from their bodies, (3) identity discourses that placed the religious identities of patients in conflict with their other identities, and (4) otherness discourses that created barriers between patients and God. The second aim of the study was to describe the externalised faces of the problems ruining the patients' lives. Here Losses, Loneliness and Lack of money were described as problems causing amongst patients feelings of worthlessness, depression, paralysis, body aches and many more. The third aim of the study was to describe the characteristics of the narrative pastoral counselling practice that has been established. This practice (1) negotiates healing between binaries such as Western/African, culture and dogma/lived experience; patient passivity/patient agency; (2) respects the indigenous knowledge of patients as it is embodied in township spiritualities; and (3) aims at introducing patients to a community of care as well as a new community of discourse where they can experience spiritual healing. / Practical Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

The study describes the counselling journey undertaken with 270 patients at the Family Medicine Clinic at Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville, Tshwane, between June 2000 and December 2003. Of these patients 75% were women, 74% were black and 97% Christian, with half of them belonging to born-again churches. A majority of the patients (52%) were unemployed and the others employed in minimum salary jobs. A third of the patients had attemped suicide at least once before, and a third had lost at least one close family member. With these patients a narrative pastoral counselling practice was established. Narrative counselling was practised as a MEET process in which the patients' problem-saturated stories were mapped and their problems externalised; they were empowered through the deconstruction of religious problem discourses, and their alternative stories were thickened by means of religious practices. This was a pastoral practice with a focus on religious discourses as problem discourses, and on the deconstruction of these discourses towards alternatives stories of faith. The first aim of the study was to describe the faces of religious problem discourses. They are (1) power discourses that hold patients captive in divinely sanctions hierarchies of gender and class, (2) body discourses that alienated patients from their bodies, (3) identity discourses that placed the religious identities of patients in conflict with their other identities, and (4) otherness discourses that created barriers between patients and God. The second aim of the study was to describe the externalised faces of the problems ruining the patients' lives. Here Losses, Loneliness and Lack of money were described as problems causing amongst patients feelings of worthlessness, depression, paralysis, body aches and many more. The third aim of the study was to describe the characteristics of the narrative pastoral counselling practice that has been established. This practice (1) negotiates healing between binaries such as Western/African, culture and dogma/lived experience; patient passivity/patient agency; (2) respects the indigenous knowledge of patients as it is embodied in township spiritualities; and (3) aims at introducing patients to a community of care as well as a new community of discourse where they can experience spiritual healing. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)