Reference to the study of the expansion of the Brahma Kumaris in Portugal is made in 'Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality: Ethnographic Approaches' edited by Anna Fedele, Kim Knibbe.
Also, in 'Indentidades e performatividade de Genero nas practicas discursivas da Brahma Kumaris', by Daniel Silva (Brazil). Cadernos de Linguagem e Sociedade 9, no 1 2008
The paper makes correlations with Agnieszka Koscianska's studies of the BKs in Poland, another Catholic country but appears to have swallowed Brahma Kumari Tamasin Ramsay's academic work as being from an independent academic and much of the usual BK whitewashing of their history etc.
It seems the BKs in Portugal have been most successful in targeting mothers
The paper starts by focusing on the difference between spiritual and religious, religious being defined as "a relationship of obedience in relation to a hierarchical authority". Religion implying "a process of institutionalization supported by relations of power, based on doctrines, theologies and rituals"
And yet, the author goes on to allow and support the BKs defining themselves instead as "spiritual". Spiritual defined as being "opposed to conformity".
Also, in 'Indentidades e performatividade de Genero nas practicas discursivas da Brahma Kumaris', by Daniel Silva (Brazil). Cadernos de Linguagem e Sociedade 9, no 1 2008
The paper makes correlations with Agnieszka Koscianska's studies of the BKs in Poland, another Catholic country but appears to have swallowed Brahma Kumari Tamasin Ramsay's academic work as being from an independent academic and much of the usual BK whitewashing of their history etc.
It seems the BKs in Portugal have been most successful in targeting mothers
The paper starts by focusing on the difference between spiritual and religious, religious being defined as "a relationship of obedience in relation to a hierarchical authority". Religion implying "a process of institutionalization supported by relations of power, based on doctrines, theologies and rituals"
And yet, the author goes on to allow and support the BKs defining themselves instead as "spiritual". Spiritual defined as being "opposed to conformity".
Identidades e performatividade de gêne- ro nas práticas discursivas da Brahma Kumaris
Daniel do Nascimento e Silva
Abstract
The present paper undertakes a theoretical and critical analysis of the question of gender within Brahma Kumaris discursive practices and makes its critique in line, basically, with the thought of Judith Butler. The interdisciplinary field of gender studies argues that gender is the very condition of possibility for subjectivity, thus being invested with social and political connotations. However, the traditions, both secular and religious, tend either to obliterate or to naturalize gender. By adopting the theoretical and methodological framework of Social and Cultural Pragmatics (Rajagopalan, 2000; Pinto, 2002), this paper attempts to critique the elision of gender within Brahma Kumaris discourse, and, in doing so, tries to address the question of performativity that is implied in recent critical approaches of the social and human sciences when focusing the question of gender.