Vernacular narratives, customs, and beliefs

Narratives and beliefs are not merely intangible; they can often be related to ritualised practices and material culture of various kinds, such as religious or magical objects. A multidisciplinary exploration of this topic can reveal the extraordinary nature of everyday practices, and how these are articulated through the performance of tradition.

This research group covers both contemporary and historical perspectives, and includes studies on narratives and customs that are distributed across a range of media, from oral and textual to material and digital. The researchers within this group also have an interest in the dissemination process, considering how technologies impact, adapt and create new narrative and customary forms, and the practice of collecting and archiving them.

Within this framework, this research group will work on various kinds of folkloric and informal religious narratives, customs and beliefs through their materiality, embodiment, and digital expression. The group gathers scholars across AHKR, especially cultural studies, the study of religion and archaeology, as well as researchers from the Centre for Digital Narrative (CDN) at LLE.