Research
Women on the threshold
Embodied pilgrimage, Marian devotion and the reorganisation of women's lives
My research grows out of my own life: years of walking, praying and studying sacred traditions across Europe and India. It asks what pilgrimage does to women, and what women do with pilgrimage when they return home.
Research questions
How do women negotiate the boundary between traditional Catholic devotion and contemporary forms of spirituality?
What happens to the meaning of pilgrimage after returning home?
What does a woman carry home, and what does she leave behind?
Fieldwork: Mariazell
Ethnographic research among women pilgrims to Mariazell, Austria's most important Marian shrine, and among the ageing communities along its pilgrim paths.
A comparative perspective
A dialogue between two traditions of embodied transformation: European Christian pilgrimage, with its walking, sacred landscapes and return, and Indian embodied traditions, with their attention to body, consciousness, ritual and Śakti.
Themes
As both researcher and pilgrim, I make my own position transparent: this is reflexive ethnography, written from inside the experience it studies.
Let's talk
Research collaboration
For conferences, academic exchange and research collaboration, I'd be glad to hear from you.