NGG Autumn Conference: Religion and the Production of Difference

November 2, 2019.

The annual meeting of the Dutch Association for the Study of Religion (NGG) was held last week in Groningen. Members of our research group, including our intern Lucy Spoliar, all presented during the conference.

Lieke Schrijvers, our PhD-candidate, presented on her ethnographic research among female converts to Pentecostalism in Dutch churches. Lieke discussed how women describe their experiences in terms of failure, and the role that authenticity plays in the narratives about these experiences.

Nella van den Brandt is a postdoctoral researcher who focusses on conversion in cultural productions, such as works of fiction, documentaries, and biographies. Nella focussed on conversion narratives from women who leave orthodox protestantism, and the transformations that are deemed desirable by the women who share these experiences through narrative and cultural productions.

Postdoctoral researcher Mariecke van den Berg presented on the conversion narratives and experiences of professional soccer players, public figures whose conversions are often contested and broadly discussed. She shows how resilience, othering, mocking, and appropriation play a role in the presentation and discussion of these conversions.

Lucy Spoliar collaborated with Nella on her research as an intern for our project last academic year, and presented this research at the NGG conference. In this research, Lucy analysed how women’s conversion to Islam was framed in several British and Swiss documentaries. Lucy presented on the way in which the discourse which is permeated in the documentary sometimes contrasts the actual conversion experience of converts, as narrated by themselves in these productions.