God(s) and Wealth. Materiality of religion, immateriality of economy
Panel 14 / Quarto Convegno Nazionale SIAC “Il ritorno del sociale”, Sapienza Università di Roma, 21-22-23 settembre 2023
Proponenti: Pino Schirripa (Università di Messina), Francesco Zanotelli (Università di Messina)
Abstract
The panel draws inspiration from, and contributes to, a variety of academic fields and literatures. The adoption of a vast comparative perspective will permit to tease out points of convergence of materiality and immateriality of wealth – including finance – in the experience and the symbolic use of religious practices.
The overarching questions the panel aims to address are:
• In which ways do actors from different historical, geographical and confessional contexts conceptualize positive visions of individual enrichment in religious terms?
• How do such understandings relate to, or challenge, religious discourses and social practices valorizing redistribution, sharing and accumulation (such as almsgiving, anti-witchcraft cults ascribing individual wealth to witchcraft, etc.)?
• To what extent has the involvement in the colonial and, more recently, in the neoliberal economy triggered religious responses in disparate contexts?
• In which way finance, as a immaterial and relational kind of wealth, deals with visions, values and transcendent perspectives, including the idea of foreseeing and forecasting
The proposed themes will allow us to explore the relationship between religion and wealth in an original fashion and from a variety of points of view. The panel welcomes papers both rooted in ethnographic and historical perspectives.
Keywords: economy, religion practices, finance, materiality, immateriality
Lingue accettate: Italiano / English / Español
