With the Halkes Foundation fellowship, the intensive time at the University of Groningen deepened my knowledge on religion, gender and sexuality
Morta Vidūnaitė
University of Groningen, the Netherlands,
Vytautas Magnus University, Vytautas Kavolis Interdisciplinary Research Institute
Kaunas, Lithuania
From September 9 to November 29, 2023, I participated in the PhD exchange research visit at the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society, University of Groningen, which was partially funded by the Halkes Foundation fellowship.
The financial support from the Halkes foundation made my three-months long stay at the University of Groningen possible. The visit was very useful for my PhD research on the female leadership and agency in the Lithuanian Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran churches. It deepened my knowledge on the intersections of religion, gender and sexuality, which I have extensively used in my PhD dissertation and the scientific article on the related topic, published at the end of 2024.
During my visit I completed two courses “Religion, Gender and Sexuality” and “Theories of Religion and Culture”, both by Dr. Kim Knibbe. They provided me with the much firmer theoretical background in the field of religious studies as well as with the more diverse outlook towards the relationship between religion, gender and sexuality also in the other historical, cultural and social contexts than the mainstream European or North American.
I also followed a part of the course “Gender, Religion and Sexual Nationalism” by Dr. Brenda E. Barterlink. It introduced me to the innovative teaching methodology, involving the meaningful input from the theatrical discipline and therefore allowing the participants through the performance to engage with the socially vulnerable situations related to the interaction of religion, gender and sexuality and strengthen their self-reflexivity as students and researchers.
On several occasions, I had a wonderful opportunity to introduce my own PhD research as well as the research of Lithuanian scientists of religion on religion, gender and sexuality in the historical, cultural and social context of Lithuania and the other Baltic countries. I read two guest lectures to the students and colleagues, who attended the courses “Religion, Gender and Sexuality” and “Gender, Religion and Sexual Nationalism”: “Religion, Gender and Sexuality in Post-Communist Baltic Countries” and “Sexual Nationalism, Intimate Citizenship and Religious Intimacies: Some Reflections from Lithuania”, respectively. I also gave the three thematic workshops for my colleagues at the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society: “Female Leadership in Religious Organisations: Comparative (Lithuanian-Dutch) Perspective” for the Department of Comparative study of Religion, “Catholic and Lutheran Female Leaders: Modality of Agency in Culturally Catholic Lithuania” at the Graduate School of Religion, Culture and Society as well as „Lithuanian Lutheran Women: Finding Agency and Leadership without Ordination“ at the Centre of Religion, Conflict and Globalisation.
This whole experience and acquired knowledge were very helpful in preparing the already published scientific publication “Performing Female Identity in a Minority Religion: Female Agency and Leadership in the Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Church without Female Ordination” based on the PhD fieldwork research for the open access journal “Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe”. In the article, I analyse how Lithuanian Lutheran women, self-identifying as practising, perform their Lutheran minority and female identities through various leadership roles and how such performativity influences their agency within an organisation in which women are not ordained. My research demonstrates that these women often assume multiple leadership roles in different areas, including church activities, professional careers, family and personal life, and the public sphere. Nevertheless, their narratives reveal that actively participating in church activities holds particular significance in their lives and constitutes a key part of their Lutheran female identity.
The last, but not the least, during my stay in Groningen, I began or strengthened some very important intellectual friendships or companionships and extended my social network in international academia, which would be priceless in my future as a scientist of religion.