Friday, June 13th 
Posters Session
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Room: St. Andrew’s College, Main Lounge (lower level)

Presenters:

Fazel Ebrihiam Freeks - Building Community and giving Hope through a Fatherhood Supporting and Engagement Tool regardless of Displacement 

In this poster presentation, it is evident that the world watched in horror as South Africans launched senseless attacks on foreigners in their communities, resulting in extensive looting and the destruction of homes, businesses, and properties owned by these individuals. This violence forced hundreds of migrants to flee. The notion of home is being redefined by the realities of migration and displacement, shedding light on issues of national identity and civic connectedness, and exacerbating the refugee crisis. Displaced refugee fathers have raised urgent and serious concerns about the despair experienced by foreigners, the disruption of family life and well-being due to father absence, and problematic fatherhood. Unfortunately, many displaced fathers end up in prison, making it crucial to explore avenues of hope amidst socially destructive issues such as displacement, refugee status, and the consequences and aftermath of incarceration. Fathers who have been displaced due to incarceration and have completed their sentences often suffer from trauma stemming from their time in prison. To address these social issues, this poster presentation proposes a Fatherhood Supporting and Engagement Tool to train and equip displaced fathers by giving hope and building resilience to fulfil their responsibilities within the domestic sphere. Assisting fathers in processing the pain and suffering caused by displacement is essential in terms of committed fathers. Moreover, efforts should be made to reintegrate displaced fathers who were uprooted from their homes back into their communities.


Ivan Kiper Malacarne - For a useless and vagabond theology: building and experiencing a home through a decolonial theological reading of the poetry of Manoel de Barros 

This research aims to present a possible way for theology to create and provide an experience of home through theopoetics, especially from a decolonial theological reading of the poetry of Manoel de Barros (a Brazilian poet, in memoriam). Given the growth of decolonial studies, the question is how it is possible for theology to resonate discourses that are relevant to contemporary times, not only to its internal audience (academy, communities and ecclesiastical institutions). Along with this, research and reflections that are the result of the dialogue between theology and literature are added, mainly from the concept of theopathodicy, by the Brazilian theologian Alex Villas Boas. This concept has poetics as a place of creation and theological experience in connection with the search for meaning for existence, carried out in everyday life. Thus, the research aims to develop a theological and decolonial reading of the poetry of the Brazilian poet Manoel de Barros and, through it, enable an experience of home. In this reading, the childish/playful language; a metapoetics of the little things, of what is discarded and useless, including many elements of “nature”; and the trates, the vagabonds, the people who are marginalized by society are the three main fundamentals. In this way, the results of this research direct towards new perspectives that challenge the colonial face of modernity and its actions in theology to resonate a relevant, dialogic and home-building theological discourse for the 21st century. 


Niel John Capidos - “Indi-Genius” Displacement: Re-envisioning Home

Displacement is a dehumanizing and pervasive phenomenon confronting indigenous peoples across different contexts. The dislocation of vulnerable indigenous communities from their ancestral domains—uprooting them from places which they consider ‘home’ and wellspring of life—has even become a ‘key-defining’ issue characterizing their present identities and lived realities. Such has been the case in Mindanao, Southern Philippines, where a number of ethno-linguistic minorities have been identified as “bakwits.” The emerging currency of the term bakwit, a vernacular transliteration of the word ‘evacuate,’ signifies both the people who have been dislocated because of conflict and disaster, as well as their public outcry as they are forced to leave their homes in the face of imminent danger. The presence and persistence of bakwits today expose the crisis of internal displacement and the enduring tactics and contestations that indigenous peoples are engaged in in Mindanao. While most academic research on indigenous peoples emphasizes their constant victimization and the indispensability of a ‘rescue paradigm’ as entrenched by charitable and humanitarian networks and institutions, this paper recasts the focus on the active and militant voice of bakwits through a qualitative empirical study of their narratives and those in solidarity with them. Conducting fieldwork interviews and utilizing Kathy Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory and the lens of decolonial thinking in doing practical theology, this paper rediscovers the bakwits’ indigenous values and age-old belief systems, and examines how their “indi-genius” worldview subverts and transforms the impacts of displacement, making it possible to theologically re-envision home amidst diaspora and unsettlement. 


Ulrich Riegel - The Importance of Context for Ordinary Theology

Ordinary Theology reconstructs the way how believers think about God and the world. Research could show that such theology is very much situated, context-related, provisional, and tentative. Ordinary believers use own words to express their theological ideas and their theology is very much fed by lived religiosity. This talk raises the question whether the current research on Ordinary Theology has a contextual bias itself. The hypothesis is that much of the reconstructed characteristics are an effect of the situation in which Ordinary Theology has been analyzed. Therefore, the discussions of 23 church-related groups all over Germany about the meaning of Jesus’ death at the cross will be analysed documentary method. These analyses indicate that the participants use theological concepts rather than own concepts, are related to institutional religiosity rather than lived religiosity, etc. There is some indication that the context in which Ordinary Theology is assessed has to be reflected more intensively. This indication will be discussed in the talk.


Wonjong Horace Lee + Heejin Chang - Resonance Beyond Home: Pastoral Counseling and the Diasporic Experience of North Korean Defectors

In the Korean context, the concept of ‘home’ extends beyond merely a physical space or community. Traditionally, Koreans have used terms like “Busan-daek” or “Seoul-daek” to refer to someone from a particular place rather than using their actual name. Notably, the word “daek” originates from the Chinese character ‘宅,’ which means home. This linguistic practice underscores the deep connection between the notion of home and personal identity in Korea, often surpassing the significance of one's name. Additionally, this perspective is uniquely tied to the Korean context, particularly in relation to the distinct circumstances of national division. This study examines the narrative experiences within pastoral counseling between a counselor who grew up in a family with a member who had defected to North Korea and a North Korean defector counselee. In this analytic third field, a profound and often indescribable resonance emerged, particularly concerning their shared diasporic experiences. This research aims to share these resonant experiences of those who have lived in 'loss-home' environments and have faced situations where revealing their true selves was impossible. Specifically, it will explore how communication and empowerment are either strengthened or weakened within the Korean context, where the value of home is deeply connected to personal identity. Ultimately, it seeks to present grounded and narrative accounts from the perspectives of the defector diaspora.


Lily An Kim - Lifeway Loss and Rebuilding

As the International Academy of Practical Theology prepares to host its conference on “(Be)coming Home and (Re)building Community” in the diverse homeland or river crossways of indigenous peoples, dialogical responses to the destabilizing threats of social and geopolitical displacement warrant recognition. On treaty territories, communal erasure alongside the deaths linked to residential/day schools (Death Investigation Teams) of interconnected Algonquian, Métis, Athabascan or Siouxan communities and of coastal peoples, e.g. Jeju, marked witnesses of the imperial impulse toward settler encroachment. With the “masculine sovereign” syndemics akin to a logic of U.S. military-industrial complexes (Denton-Borhaug), an ever-worsening climate crisis was fuelled by political betrayal and by corporate exploitation of land and water resources. Inherent in these colonial legacies were child removal and state “healthcare” policies. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls deepened the profound soul wounding inflicted upon generations of matriarchs. Subsequently, their indigenous languages and communities were endangered on Turtle Island. Before the Centre for National Truth and Centre Reconciliation, the integral meaning of historical matriarchs to diverse women’s activism served to foreground the modern issue of displacement; hence, they became critical to cultural revival and (re)building ventures. Starting with the Anglican Church of Canada, Christian-Jewish Dialogue was one post-Holocaust organizational way of co-creating space for survivors throughout 70 consecutive years. With a trauma lens of human rights and mixed methods/ practical theological approach to studying reconciliation, survivor inclusion in the quest for overcoming cultural trauma has helped recover the hidden voices, amid a liminality of (be)coming—termed “spiritual mutism” by Dr. Lily Kim. Toward a greater embodiment interwoven into collective wellbeing, communal relationships and responsibilities emerged from the practices and watercourses linked to traumatic rupture like Saskatchewan or Ontario sites after Theresienstadt concentration camp. Through 7 decades of cooperation, in elevating survivor agency, global/digital spaces grew through peopling of faith.


Aline Knapp - Post-Digital Spirituality: A Grounded Theory on the Use of the Christian Meditation App Evermore

The poster presents the current state of my PhD project, which explores post-digital spirituality by studying a specific practice and, in doing so, applying a praxeological approach. The focus is on the use of the Christian app Evermore. The inductive study operates within the framework of Grounded Theory and focuses on the experiences of the app's users, which are collected using the Experience Sampling methodology. The poster presents the design of the study, initial findings, and early reflections on post-digital spirituality.


Birgit Weyel - “How little we feel at home in this world ”. Home and Displacement in German Funeral Sermons 

This poster presents observations on contemporary historical references in funeral sermons. The discussion encompasses not only historical sermons from the 20th century (e.g. world war II) but also contemporary funeral sermons that address historical references to war, expulsion, imprisonment and dispossession (GDR) in a context of Family-history and within a christian frame of interpretation. The context of the funeral provides a personal and concrete reference point for historical events, allowing them to be categorized from an individual perspective. On occasion of the funeral, the individual perspective appears to exclude the question of entanglement in injustice and the assumption of responsibility, which is particularly pertinent in the context of German history. The concept of home is characterized by ambivalence, which will be developed and illustrated by material from the sermons. The project focuses on one aspect of the larger research project of the research group ‘De/Sacralization of Texts’ (FOR 2828).


Lea Stolz - Welcome to Germany? A Discourse Analysis of Brochures Explaining Everyday Life in Germany to (Muslim-Arab) Refugees

Following the arrival of many Arab refugees in 2015 and the subsequent years, brochures were distributed to help them navigate everyday life in Germany. Several of these brochures have also been published by Christian players. Besides offering – at least seemingly – trivial advice such as separating rubbish meticulously and maintaining silence after 10 p.m., it is their main target to familiarise the newly arrived with what they envision as the value system of the Christian West. This includes, for example, respecting women as equal or knowing about Christian festivals and how they shape the annual cycle. By means of a discourse analysis, I critically reconstruct this value system as well as its implicit image of the (Muslim-Arab) Other. 


Lynn Kristin Schroeter - An interdisciplinary study on the narratives of suffering in Passion

The Oberammergau Passion Play brings a central theme of Christianity: the suffering of Christ. The basis of the almost 400-year-old tradition of the Oberammergau Passion Play is a plague vow from the year 1633. The Passion of Christ has been performed every ten years by 2000 people from Oberammergau and watched by over 500.000 people from all over the world. Obviously, many visitors are touched by the performance of biblical narratives of suffering. How do the biblical narratives of suffering become relatable for viewers and performers? What religious or existential problems or questions are addressed? How does the performance of biblical narratives of suffering work here? The aim of the research is to analyze the narratives of suffering in the Oberammergau Passion Plays 2022 and to ask to what extent they are connectable. 
To answer the research question, a theatrical analysis and a subsequent practical theological reflection on the results is needed. In order to take account of the complexity of the research object, a variety of methods is essential: The play on stage is examined by analyzing the performance. The audience will be observed as participants. Interviews are conducted with viewers and performers. The interviews focus on the experience of attending and participating in the Passion Play. The entire data material is analyzed using grounded theory. This research shows how suffering in the performance is portrayed or becomes intersubjectively comprehensible, and the diversity of the experiential dimensions of embodied narratives of suffering for viewers and performers.


Marcel Brenner - Doing Community and Communion – Practice Theory Ethnography of the Contemporary Protestant Communion in Germany

Eucharist practices often refer to terms as Communion or Community (from latin communio). There is often talk of ‘table community’ or ‘community with god and with each other’. But what is community and how do communities develop in the sense of group formation, identification or boundary? There are some studies that analyze Sunday services (with or without Eucharist) as interaction ritual (Walti 2016, referring to Goffman). In my research I see the Lord’s Supper as social practice in worship rituals in which actors like space, bodies, things, artefacts, persons, call up and perform implicit knowledge for example about how to eat and drink. The dissertation project takes a change perspective that is linked to qualitative empirical data (participant observation and videography). The study uses ethnographic methods to take a look at how the Eucharist is currently celebrated in protestant churches in Germany. It contributes to research into lived religion und religious practices as social practices like Reckwitz and other call it in Practice Theory approach. With a view on micro-practices in case studies it is describable what role materiality plays, how actors interact, how community emerges from the practices, and how community is built or provided. Consequently, the question is to what extent it is adequate to speak of Communion.