Community Considerations
Alternative Spirituality and the Afterlife: Perspectives from Bosnia and Herzegovina
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Tina Ivnik
Alternative spirituality has been growing in popularity and becoming more widespread in Western countries for decades. However, little is known about the presence and characteristics of alternative spirituality movements in Southeastern Europe. Based on six months of fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation, my paper examines individuals involved in alternative spirituality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In particular, it explores how ideas about the afterlife have evolved under the influence of various alternative spirituality movements. Moreover, given that in Bosnia and Herzegovina there are three widespread religions – Islam, Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism – the study also investigates whether traditional religious explanations of the afterlife continue to influence the beliefs of those who otherwise identify as spiritual.
Indigeneity at the Confluence of Ecumenical and Sectarian Christianities: The Case of a Philippine Ethnolinguistic Community
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Scott Saboy
This paper looks into the continuing interface between the Vanaw, a northern Philippine Indigenous culture, and foreign Christian (Liturgical, Evangelical and Pentecostal-Charismatic) traditions. It provides a historical backdrop of this interface, examines the resilience and vulnerabilities of local traditional culture, explores the beneficial and detrimental impact of ecumenical and sectarian missiologies on a particular set of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices (IKSP), and examines the local concept of panankikinnámit ‘intertwining’ to articulate an Indigenous Relational Worldview that can offer a way to develop an irenic spirit among community members adhering to various – even diametrically opposed – expressions of faith. With the spectre of language and culture loss looming over the archipelago’s 110 Indigenous Peoples groups, this study aims to contribute to an emic but areligious perspective on how external and internal forces shape a traditional culture’s sense of identity, and its apprehension of the religious and/or the spiritual.
