Prayer as transgression? v.1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Prayer as transgression? Exploring accommodation of and resistance to prayer in public spaces
IRAS ID
203830
Contact name
Sonya Sharma
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Kingston University London
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 24 months, days
Research summary
Why?
Increasing religious and ethnic plurality, following decades of secularising trends, is resulting in new attention being given to how religion is expressed and negotiated in public spaces. Prayer—in addition to involving the sacred, meaning making, seeking divine support, and not fixed to a particular religious tradition—can also be perceived as an act of transgression that accommodates and resists institutional norms and social structures. This project aims to theorise new ways of understanding everyday acts of prayer and how prayer might contribute to both social cohesion and division.What?
The focus of our study is prayer within healthcare and social relations—at individual, institutional, and societal levels—that characterise and shape the expression of religion.Where?
In healthcare settings prayer is performed in public spaces (e.g. chapels, multi-faith spaces, at a patient's bedside, or a corridor with family) often made intimate by personal suffering and interpersonal connections. This project aims to explore the ways that prayer is manifest-whether embraced, tolerated, or resisted-in healthcare settings. Hospitals, as complex social systems and microcosms of broader society, are settings where prayer and religion come into play, and yet little research that has religion as the focus has been conducted in Canadian or British hospitals. The study will be conducted at two sites, one in Vancouver, Canada and one in London, UK.How?
Innovative approaches to data collection (i.e. research diaries and walking interviews) along with established ethnographic methods (i.e. in-depth interviews and participant observations) will provide rich insight into how prayer is "lived" in these two settings.Who?
Spiritual care practitioners (i.e. chaplains), citizens, administrators and healthcare professionals will be recruited to articulate the nuances of how prayer is enacted in healthcare settings. The length of the study is 2015-2018.REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
16/NI/0127
Date of REC Opinion
29 Jun 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion