Creating Bridges Between the Historical Divisions and Disciplines

Creating Bridges Between the Historical Divisions and Disciplines

Contemporary Encounters in Gender and Religion - European Perspectives

Gemzöe, Lena, Keinänen, Marja-Liisa, Maddrell, Avril (Eds.) © 2016

Ch. 14:  `Feminist Theology, Religious Studies and Gender Studies: Mutual Challenges`  

Elina  Vuola

My humble attainment from this chapter in a nutshell: I wasn’t aware of the tensions between religious studies and theology. The chapter also made me realize of my own narrow understanding of theology as more formal and closed, which -according to Vuila- is simply not true.

Secondly, I didn’t know that intersectionality was first proposed by a feminist theologian in the 1970s! That’s pretty impressive. The happy end: Gender Studies can be the key area or the bridge which can create links between anthropology (I’d say social sciences in general), theology and religious studies.  

Vuola argues that research on gender and religion often lacks in-depth interdisciplinarity. She finds this particularly conspicuous between theology, religious studies, and anthropology of religion and calls for ‘a self-critical re-evaluation of one’s own discipline and its specific history in relation to other fields’.

I wonder when we are going to pass this argument in academia and move on, it is 2020!

**

Vuola mentions a shared concern among scholars of religion and gender about a double blindness:

1. blindness to religion in gender studies, 2. gender blindness in religious studies, including theology.

However, from theology perspective, add yet another blindness at the core of the study of religion and gender, namely a form of blindness to theology. She also argues that another blind spot is that of lived religion in theology (my new focus of interest!), including feminist theology: ordinary women’s theological thoughts and interpretations have not occupied a central place in feminist theology. + a lack, -lesser extent- of significant dialogue between feminist theology and religious studies on gender.

The inside (theology)/outside(religious studies) question has been explored by many scholars, but here Vuola refers only to an insightful discussion by Kim Knott. Instead of a binary approach, Knott presents a continuum of perspectives by applying, from the social sciences, the model of participant/observer roles. Knott’s model is helpful because it emphasizes method instead of the individual scholar and her/his religious identity.

Wow! Intersectionality was present in feminist theology earlier than in other fields of gender studies, a fact that is not recognized in either secular feminist theory or feminist studies of religion.

1975:  Rosemary Ruether and other feminist theologians already stated that gender should always be analyzed in relation to class and race. Ruether used the term “interstructuring” rather than intersectionality.

Feminist theology as a concept is contested in itself: e.g: womanist or mujerista  theology (For them, “feminist” refers primarily to the experiences and struggles of white women).

Feminist theology can thus be recognized as part of the academic study of religion and as (women’s) religious agency.

*the study of lived religion and the theological ideas that are related to it should not be too arbitrarily separated. Otherwise, binaries are created again, no?

* another major criticism: Feminist theology is seldom the subject of actual academic research beyond theology. The omission may in some cases be related to the wider historiography of feminism as a primarily Western and secular phenomenon, which fails to acknowledge the central role of religion and religious communities for women’s movements around the world. It is important that gender scholars in religion do not repeat this narrowness of secular gender studies.

She calls for deeper interdisciplinarity: Scholarly interest in ideas as much as in practice.

As in gender studies, the blindness of development studies and international politics to religion— especially its emancipatory and empowering aspects—has been the product of the secular/religious division on the one hand, and the private/public division, on the other (324). At the same time, both in international development activities and in conflict resolution processes, religious leaders, communities and beliefs have played an important role at the grassroots level.

Gender studies in religion may form a privileged space for creating bridges between the historical divisions that have separated theology, anthropology and religious studies.