The Challenges of Pluralism: Locating Religion in a World of Diversity

This is a postprint (author's final draft) version of an article published in the journal Social Compass in 2010. The final version of this article may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0037768610362406 (login may be required). The version made available in OpenBU was supplied by the author.

Using Behavioral Insights For a Better Understanding of Economic Decisions (Regarding Savings, Inequality and Dishonesty)

This dissertation consists of three essays on behavioral economics, with a general aim of enriching our understanding of economic decisions using behavioral insights and experimental methodology. Each essay takes on one particular topic with this general aim.

The first chapter studies savings behavior of the poor. In this project, partnering with a savings product provider in Kenya, we tested the extent to which behavioral interventions and financial incentives can increase the saving rate of individuals with low and irregular income. Our experiment lasted for six months and included a total of twelve conditions. The control condition received weekly reminders and balance reporting via text messages. The treatment conditions received in addition one of the following interventions: (1) reminder text messages framed as if they came from the participant’s kid (2) a golden colored coin with numbers for each week of the trial, on which participants were asked to keep track of their weekly deposits (3) a match of weekly savings: The match was either 10% or 20% up to a certain amount per week. The match was either deposited at the end of each week or the highest possible match was deposited at the start of each week and was adjusted at the end. Among these interventions, by far the most effective was the coin: Those in the coin condition saved on average the highest amount and more than twice as those in the control condition. We hypothesize that being a tangible track-keeping object; the coin made subjects remember to save more often. Our results support the line of literature suggesting that saving decisions involve psychological aspects and that policy makers and product designers should take these influences into account.

The second chapter is related to views towards inequality. In this project, we investigate how the perceived fairness of income distributions depends on the beliefs about the process that generated the inequality. Specifically, we examine how two crucial features of this process affect fairness views: (1) Procedural justice - equal treatment of all, (2) Agency - one's ability to determine his/her income. We do this in a lab experiment by varying the equality of opportunity (procedural justice), and one's ability to make choices, which consequently influence subjects’ ability to influence their income (agency). We then elicit ex-post redistribution decisions of the earnings as a function of these two elements. Our results suggest both agency and procedural justice matter for fairness. Our main findings can be summarized as follows: (1) Highlighting the importance of agency, we find that inequality resulting from risk is considered to be fair only when risk is chosen freely; (2) Highlighting the importance of procedural justice, we find that introducing inequality of opportunity significantly increases redistribution, however the share of subjects redistributing none remain close to the share of subjects redistributing fully revealing an underlying heterogeneity in the population about how fairness views should account for inequality of opportunity.

The third chapter is on morality. In this project, we study whether religious rituals act as an internal reminder for basic moral principles and thus affect moral judgments. To this end, we conducted two survey experiments in Turkey and Israel to specifically test the effect of Ramadan and Yom Kippur. The results from the Turkish sample how that Ramadan has a significant effect on moral judgments to some extent for those who report to believe in God. Those who believe in God judged the moral acceptability of ten out of sixty one actions significantly differently in Ramadan, whereas those who reported not to believe in God significantly changed their judgments only for one action in Ramadan. Our results extends the hypothesis established by lab experiments that religious reminders have a significant effect on morality, by testing it in the field in the natural environment of religious rituals.

This thesis is part of a broader collaborative research agenda with both colleagues and advisors. The programming, analyses, and writing, as well as any errors in this work, are my own.

Battles, Boats & Bones:Archaeological Discoveries in Northern Ireland 1987-2008

How did our ancestors build their homes? What weapons did they use? What religious rituals did they follow? What did they eat? How did technology develop over the centuries? These are just some of the questions answered in Battles, Boats & Bones, which offers a fascinating insight into the daily lives of our ancestors stretching back as far as the Early Neolithic period. Bringing together details and interpretations of discoveries made as a result of 25 archaeological excavations across Northern Ireland over the last 20 years, the book is a window into our collective past. https://www.tsoshop.co.uk/gempdf/Timeline_Circles.swf

La transmission religieuse et culturelle au sein de familles maghrébo-québécoises à Montréal

Cette recherche porte sur la transmission religio-culturelle aux enfants de couples maghrébo-québécois islamo-chrétiens à Montréal. À la suite de l’analyse de 10 entrevues semi-directives réalisées auprès de couples parentaux, nous tenterons de répondre aux questions suivantes : Quelle appartenance religieuse les parents veulent-ils transmettre à leur(s) enfant(s) ? Comment se manifestent leurs choix dans leur pratique religieuse ? Quels compromis les parents font-ils pour l’équilibre familial et identitaire de leur(s) enfant(s) ? Comment légitiment-ils leurs choix parentaux ? Afin de répondre à ces questions, nous nous sommes donné les objectifs spécifiques suivants : 1) documenter les choix des parents concernant la transmission religio-culturelle aux enfants; 2) cerner les façons dont les pratiques et les croyances religieuses des parents influencent leurs choix; 3) expliquer en quoi ces choix se manifestent dans leurs pratiques rituelles avec les enfants; 4) dégager les légitimations que les parents font vis-à-vis de leur choix de transmission. Les résultats de notre recherche ne nous ont pas permis de trouver une logique de transmission qui s’applique à tous nos parents. Cependant, nous retenons que les enfants de notre échantillon sont identifiés par leurs parents soit comme musulmans (5 familles sur 10) soit sans religion (5 familles sur 10). Aucun couple n’a choisi, en effet, le catholicisme pour leur enfant, et ce, même dans le cas où le conjoint catholique est pratiquant. À l’aide des choix parentaux concernant plus particulièrement le rite de la circoncision et la célébration des principales fêtes religieuses, nous dégageons quelques points d’ancrages communs face à la transmission symbolique. Quelle que soit la position du parent musulman face à la religion (pratiquant, non pratiquant, athée), celui-ci reste profondément attaché au rite de la circoncision pour son enfant dans un souci de transmission culturelle. La transmission biculturelle où les fêtes des deux lignées sont célébrées en famille est la plus pratiquée.

Faith lost and regained : the evolution of Anne Rice's critique of christianity in The Vampire Chronicles

Ce mémoire réunit trois romans de la série Les Chroniques de vampires de la populaire écrivaine américaine Anne Rice (The Vampire Lestat, Memnoch the Devil et Blood Canticle) afin d'étudier l'évolution de sa critique de la religion à travers l'écriture. Une analyse précise et complète de Lestat de Lioncourt, le personnage principal de la série, est faite afin de mieux comprendre l'impact de la transformation spirituelle du protagoniste sur l'ensemble de l'oeuvre de Rice. Dans The Vampire Lestat, le rejet de toute forme de croyances religieuses de la part de Lestat ainsi que la déconstruction et l'érotisation de rituels religieux traditionnels reflètent l'influence de l'athéisme. Memnoch the Devil représente la transition entre le refus de croire de Lestat et son retour subséquent à la religion catholique. Finalement, Blood Canticle symbolise le retour vers la foi du protagoniste et de l'auteur, en plus de marquer la fin des Chroniques de vampires de Rice. L'analyse s'inspire d'éléments biographiques afin de démontrer l'importance de la religion dans les récits de Rice, sans toutefois considérer ses romans comme des autobiographies.

Believing in belief : the modernist quest for spiritual meaning (Croyer en croyance : la quête moderniste pour le sens spirituel)

Cette thèse défend l’idée que plusieurs auteurs modernistes ont utilisé des concepts centraux à la croyance religieuse traditionnelle afin de préconiser le changement social. Au lieu de soutenir l'hypothèse de la sécularisation, qui prétend que les modernistes ont rejeté la religion en faveur d'une laïcité non contestée, j'argumente en faveur de ce que j'appelle « la spiritualité moderniste, » qui décrie une continuité intégrale des concepts spirituels dans l'agitation de la période moderniste qui a déstabilisée les institutions qui avait auparavant jeté les bases de la société Occidentale. En me basant sur les écrit de Sigmund Freud, William James et Émile Durkheim concernant les fins poursuivis par la religion, je développe cinq concepts centraux de la croyance religieuse que les modernistes ont cherché à resignifier, à savoir la rédemption, la communauté, la sacralité, le spectre, et la liturgie, et, dans chaque cas, j'ai montré comment ces catégories ont été réinterprétées pour traiter des questions considérées comme essentielles au début du vingtième siècle, à savoir ce que l’on identifie aujourd’hui comme le féminisme, l'écologie, la biopolitique, les crises, et le rôle du poète. Le chapitre I se concentre sur la rédemption par le féminin telle qu’on la trouve dans le recueil de vers de H.D. portant sur la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Trilogy (1944-1946), qui projette un certain espoir grâce à un mélange synchrétique de Christianisme, de mythes anciens, d’astrologie, et de psychologie. Mon deuxième chapitre discute de The Grapes of Wrath (1939) de John Steinbeck, qui élargit le rôle de la communauté en avançant une écologie universelle qui concevoit tous les gens comme étant intimement liés entre eux et avec le monde. Le chapitre III traite de la notion du sacré dans The Light in August (1932) de Willam Faulkner et Nightwood (1936) de Djuna Barnes, qui préconisent une foi privatisée qui accentue l'illégitimité des concepts de sacralité et de pollution en élevant des individus qui sont marginalisés biopolitiquement. Le chapitre IV cherche à comprendre le retour des morts, et je soutiens que le topos a été utilisé par les modernistes comme un symbole de crises sociales; le chapitre enquête d'abord sur “The Jolly Corner” (1908) de Henry James, que j'ai lu comme la séquence rêvée d'un homme faisant face à son propre spectre, Ulysses (1922) de James Joyce, où Stephen Dedalus est hanté de façon répétée par le spectre de sa mère, et Mrs. Dalloway (1925) de Virginia Woolf, qui se concentre sur le motif caché de la Fête des Morts. Ma cinquième section traite de la liturgie, la langue poétique utilisée pour les rites religieux, dans la première poésie de Wallace Stevens, qui conçoit le rôle du poète comme une vocation de l'imagination.

A festa do bom Jesus dos navegantes em propriá-se: história de fé, espaço das relações sociais e laços culturais

The study is a survey conducted for the Master of Social Sciences carried out in partnership between the Universidade Tiradentes-UNIT/SE and the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). Being a religious event, we seek to show that the religious parties generally have particular meanings for each nation or region. Amaral (1998) informs that the Brazilian parties regardless of where they occur are popular demonstrations that, as the context in which they present themselves, can dilute to crystallize, to celebrate, to ritualize or sacralize the particular social experience of the groups that do. They happen as a way to thank victories or important religious passages as Christmas, the June saints celebration, patron saints and patron saints considered. Thus, The Bom Jesus dos Navegantes party in Propriá-SE: story of faith, a space of social relations and cultural ties, is presented as our field of study because it is one of those celebrations that while celebrated in Sergipe, always on Sundays in January, by some municipalities situated along the river San Francisco, has the characteristic of overlap any others placed in town, including the one of the city's patron saint, Saint Anthony, held on June 13. Concerning the materials and methods, we opted for qualitative research and participant direct observation, using the techniques of personal notes, interviews, newspapers, websites, photos, videos and testimonials from participants and organizers, as well as references offered by experts of the area. With this research answers were sought to questions about what could keep alive the celebration of Bom Jesus dos Navegantes each year in order that this is a patron saint, not saint; the way as the investment of local government with more resources in this period, during the organization of arts festivals, has created a thread of tension with the Catholic Church promoting the religious rituals was reviewed. It was also analyzed how the sacred and profane spaces present themselves inseparable from the celebration and, finally, it was revealed that the party retains its value by preserving its tradition and making room for modernity, not weakening but suffering metamorphoses of time and space and can be seen in the social and cultural bonds wrapped by the time of religious faith

A apreciação musical infantil: aspectos da constituição da infância contemporânea no discurso de crianças do Ensino Fundamental

Music can be found in peculiar historical and social context with distinct functions, such as religious rituals, ethic-esthetic education of subjects, therapeutic elements, critic and maintenance of established patterns, among others. Considered as language, music acts on dialogue dimensions of the body, the senses, the affectionate-cognitive and of social interactions. Their uses reveal the social forces that cross the culture and constitution of subjectivities. The attribution of senses by the subjects to musical production reveals the cultural voices in dialogue, that circumscribe determined social places to them. Our aim in this work is to investigate the child musical appreciation, with children about 7 to 9 years old, and, by attributing uses and senses to music, unveil the voices that settle the places intended and assumed by infancy in contemporaneity The child constructs its musical appreciation through cultural access and mediation, possible by circulation in several socializing groups like family, school, church, infant groups, community groups and, more recently, publicity and media These last two spheres, enabled by the development of the technological means of communication, contributed to the dissemination of the set of consume ideas and for the emergence of the cultural industry, characteristic of the capitalistic production way in its present configuration. They develop new possibilities of perception of the world, in which the limits between childhood and adulthood are not anymore the same that have been established in previous centuries. So, the child musical appreciation is constituted by homogeneity regarding the senses built and disseminated by cultural industry and by the logical merchandizing, and singularities, associated to the construction of senses in interaction with global, local, and multiple contexts, through which the subject circulates and constitutes himself polyphonically

Historical aspects of Belly Dance and its practice in Brazil

Dance is regarded as one of the oldest art forms, which is based on evidence from prehistoric paintings found in caves; man expressed himself through body language prior to the development of spoken and written forms of communication. Dance was then used during important events, common to their era and culture, and often in religious rituals, to ensure good harvests - their economic activity. Belly-dance appeared approximately eight thousand years B. C. E. as a sacred dance firstly practiced by priestesses, and after that, it was popularized amongst women from Mesopotamia. Virtually considered an ancient form of physical exercise, it is still practiced by Bedouin women as a preparation for spontaneous delivery. In Brazil, belly-dance is widely practiced and our corporal culture enables its learning and improvement, resulting in professional dancers.

As artes e as técnicas do ser e do saber/fazer em algumas atividades no cotidiano da comunidade Kalunga do Riachão

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

A dança e o ventre: aparência corporal na contemporaneidade

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

O estado puerperal e suas interseções com a bioética

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

MISTICISMO E PROTESTANTISMO: UM ESTUDO FENOMENOLÓGICO DAS EXPERIÊNCIAS RELIGIOSAS

A presente tese investiga as manifestações de misticismo no Protestantismo brasileiro, especialmente em seus primórdios, tendo como campo de observação a atividade missionária. Este trabalho registra-se em meio aos estudos que abordam as relações entre cultura, religião e modernidade, principalmente quanto ao campo simbólico. Trata-se de pesquisa exploratória fundamentada no método fenomenológico. Para tanto, utiliza-se a redução fenomenológica e a redução eidética conforme as orientações de Edmund Husserl. Esta tese procura trazer contribuições para esclarecer elementos presentes na construção, transformação e difusão do Protestantismo, considerando a mística protestante como fenômeno religioso. A experiência mística é analisada do ponto de vista individual e coletivo, uma vez que este trabalho privilegia uma perspectiva sociológica em interface com a Psicologia, a Antropologia e, menos centralmente, a Filosofia e a História. Como pesquisa qualitativa e delimitada por seu objeto de estudo, o misticismo pode ser inicialmente apontado como relação direta entre o sagrado e o fiel, reconhecida desta forma individualmente e pelo grupo a que pertence.Tomou-se como referência teórica, entre outros autores, as idéias do sociólogo Roger Bastide, procurando confirmar ou refutar sua hipótese que um dos significados do misticismo pudesse representar a emergência do sagrado selvagem. Esta expressão designa a presença de elementos simbólicos que se manifestam de modo espontâneo ou explosivo nos rituais religiosos. Processos como a secularização e a laicização, decorrentes da institucionalização e modernidade da religião, fazem manifestar o sagrado selvagem, revelando os resíduos das produções sócio -culturais aparentemente ocultas ou mesmo latentes.Os instrumentos utilizados para a realização da pesquisa são trechos de obras literárias características do Protestantismo como A Peregrina e O Peregrino de autoria de John Bunyan, bem como jornais e periódicos evangélicos brasileiros referentes à segunda metade do século XIX: O Estandarte, Puritano e Expositor Cristão, que transmitiam concepções do Puritanismo e do Pietismo. Trechos de diários dos missionários e textos autobiográficos de pastores complementam a análise. O trabalho situa-se historicamente no período antecedente ao da Reforma, seu desenvolvimento e desdobramentos. Priorizaram-se especialmente os movimentos de reavivamento inglês e americano. em suas respectivas influências no imaginário e nas práticas religiosas brasileiras. Após cuidadosa leitura, seleção e organização por unidade de sentido dos dados analisados, firmou-se a hipótese de que a mística protestante é um elemento constitutivo do Protestantismo, representando modalidades de significação social, entre as quais destacam-se as mediações culturais entre: razão/emoção; ingularização/institucionalização; fragmentação/unidade; tradição/inovação; e padronização/automia, expressando relações com as formas de poder, mudança social e divergência de interesses sócio-econômicos.Verificou-se a existência, principalmente nas camadas socialmente menos privilegiadas da população, de indícios relevantes de aproximação cultural entre alguns elementos de práticas religiosas do Pentecostalismo vinculadas ao campo simbólico africano e indígena. Sugere-se que novas pesquisas sejam realizadas, revelando os significados das formas de expressão místicas no Protestantismo brasileiro e suas relações com o Pentecostalismo. Essas investigações podem clarificar os processos de justaposição de elementos culturais distintos nas práticas religiosas brasileiras, como afirmados por Roger Bastide, e corroborados por esta pesquisa.