Women's Ministries Initiative (original) (raw)

Female Gurus as the embodiment of Pilgrimage Sites: Transforming profane buildings into wellsprings of well-being

Religious Transformation and Gender Contestations in/and the Study of Religion, Gender and Sexuality, Utrecht University, Netherlands, 2021

It is comprised of three multidisciplinary sub-projects in the form of a PhD research and two postdoctoral studies. Researchers Project leader: Prof. dr. Anne-Marie Korte. Personal website. Postdoctoral researcher: dr. Nella van den Brandt. Personal website. Title of subproject: 'Contemporary Controversies about Religion and Women's Emancipation in West-European Contexts: Great Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium.' Postdoctoral researcher: prof. dr. Mariecke van den Berg. Personal website.

Muslim Women's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond

Routledge, 2021

This book investigates female Muslims pilgrimage practices and how these relate to women's mobility, social relations, identities, and the power structures that shape women's lives. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and regional expertise, it offers in-depth investigation of the gendered dimensions of Muslim pilgrimage and the life-worlds of female pilgrims. With a variety of case studies, the contributors explore the experiences of female pilgrims to Mecca and other pilgrimage sites, and how these are embedded in historical and current contexts of globalisation and transnational mobility. This volume will be relevant to a broad audience of researchers across pilgrimage, gender, religious, and Islamic studies.

On pilgrimage with biblical women in their land(s)

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 2011

Recent sociological and anthropological studies have provided models for examining pilgrimage both in its ancient and contemporary manifestations. Such models can facilitate an examination of the phenomenon of study tours to biblical lands and the multivalence of the discourses associated with such tours. The first part of the article engaged critically with the literature in order to open up some frameworks for examining the study tour to biblical lands. Feminist critical biblical scholarship with its potential for a feminist hermeneutic of creative imagination contributes to the multivalence around the study tour. Therefore, the second part of the article engaged this scholarship in relation to an imagined tour with women of the biblical lands. The article highlighted significant issues for consideration for those planning a study tour of biblical lands, especially in terms of the consideration that ought to be paid to gender.

Marlena Whiting & Emilia Salerno - Women and Pilgrimage In the ancient and pre-modern world (University of Amsterdam. June 8-9, 2018)

Kleos Issue 2, 2019

This conference was organized as part of Dr. Marlena Whiting’s NWO Veni research project “Gendering Sacred Space: Female Networks, Patronage, and Ritual Experience in Early Christian Pilgrimage”, to encourage scholars working on the field of women and pilgrimage in different periods and different cultures to explore and share some of the methodological challenges and insights that their particular area of expertise has yielded. The conference was co-organized by Ms Emilia Salerno (MA), a specialist in gender and the Roman cult of Magna Mater.

Early Christian Female Pilgrimage to the Shrines of Saint Menas, Saint Simeon the Elder, and Saint Thecla

Studies in Late Antiquity, 2019

Elite female pilgrims are some of the most celebrated and well-studied women of Late Antiquity. The narratives surrounding the travels of women such as Egeria or Paula constitute a large proportion of our knowledge about pilgrimage practice in general and have formed the focus for the study of gender and pilgrimage in particular. This bias towards famous literary sources and elite experience, however, obscures our understanding of the “normal” women who made up the majority of female pilgrims. This article seeks to redress this imbalance by integrating material and textual sources from three sites of early Christian pilgrimage in order to better understand the interconnected relationship women had with these shrines. Evidence from the shrines of Saint Menas at Abu Mina, Saint Simeon the Stylite the Elder at Qal’at Sem’an, and Saint Thecla at Seleucia show how gender could shape pilgrimage experience and how sites recognised women as a specific visitor demographic and catered to their needs. This was achieved through the provision of narratives related to the dangers of pilgrimage, segregated spaces, and products aimed at women to purchase. In a wider sense, it argues that many women in Late Antiquity had greater freedom to travel and move in public spaces than is often recognised and that this freedom was not necessarily dependent on marital or sexual status.