Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory

This article focuses on rituals of community life within a North American church in which many of the congregants live with psychiatric disabilities and whose participation in religious life is affected by their experiences of poverty and gentrification. I begin by exploring an aesthetic practice of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Rebecca F. Spurrier
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	MDPI AG 2017-10-01
Series:	Religions
Subjects:	memory disability church gentrification mental illness liturgy Spivak
Online Access:	https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/8/10/219

id	doaj-d4ea5a391d614273854454999852e612
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spelling	doaj-d4ea5a391d614273854454999852e6122020-11-24T22:52:29ZengMDPI AGReligions2077-14442017-10-0181021910.3390/rel8100219rel8100219Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious MemoryRebecca F. Spurrier0Columbia Theological Seminary, PO Box 520, Decatur, GA 30031, USAThis article focuses on rituals of community life within a North American church in which many of the congregants live with psychiatric disabilities and whose participation in religious life is affected by their experiences of poverty and gentrification. I begin by exploring an aesthetic practice of remembrance that the postcolonial scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak identifies and performs in an essay entitled “Harlem”. Drawing upon Spivak’s description of an imaginative practice she identifies as “teleiopoiesis” and my own ethnographic research, including participant observation and interviews, I analyze an example of how this community incorporates visual art into its practices of communal memory as part of one church’s weeklong liturgy. I then argue for the church’s gathering of members from across the city as a practice of remembrance across time and space that confronts the structures and injustices of urban life that challenge the communal identity emerging from this congregation’s religious practices.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/8/10/219memorydisabilitychurchgentrificationmental illnessliturgySpivak
collection	DOAJ
language	English
format	Article
sources	DOAJ
author	Rebecca F. Spurrier
spellingShingle	Rebecca F. Spurrier Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory Religions memory disability church gentrification mental illness liturgy Spivak
author_facet	Rebecca F. Spurrier
author_sort	Rebecca F. Spurrier
title	Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory
title_short	Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory
title_full	Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory
title_fullStr	Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory
title_full_unstemmed	Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory
title_sort	remembering the neighborhood: church, disability, and religious memory
publisher	MDPI AG
series	Religions
issn	2077-1444
publishDate	2017-10-01
description	This article focuses on rituals of community life within a North American church in which many of the congregants live with psychiatric disabilities and whose participation in religious life is affected by their experiences of poverty and gentrification. I begin by exploring an aesthetic practice of remembrance that the postcolonial scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak identifies and performs in an essay entitled “Harlem”. Drawing upon Spivak’s description of an imaginative practice she identifies as “teleiopoiesis” and my own ethnographic research, including participant observation and interviews, I analyze an example of how this community incorporates visual art into its practices of communal memory as part of one church’s weeklong liturgy. I then argue for the church’s gathering of members from across the city as a practice of remembrance across time and space that confronts the structures and injustices of urban life that challenge the communal identity emerging from this congregation’s religious practices.
topic	memory disability church gentrification mental illness liturgy Spivak
url	https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/8/10/219
work_keys_str_mv	AT rebeccafspurrier rememberingtheneighborhoodchurchdisabilityandreligiousmemory
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Remembering the Neighborhood: Church, Disability, and Religious Memory

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