e-rhizome 2021, 3(2):86-102 | DOI: 10.5507/rh.2021.006

'They're so into it': Perceptions of 'Religion', Orthodoxy and Belonging in Post-Yugoslav Serbia

Nicholas Lackenby
Department of Anthropology
University College London
14 Taviton Street, London
WC1H 0BW, United Kingdom
n.lackenby@ucl.ac.uk

Much has been written about how people embraced new religious identities following the collapse of socialist regimes. This article argues that it is also important to consider the perspective of those (sometimes sceptical) people who may be less eager to participate in new, emergent forms of embodied religious practice. In the ethnographic context of post-Yugoslav Serbia, I ask how 'religion' is perceived, constituted, and evaluated from the sidelines. How do local perceptions of what 'religion' is connect - and collide - with wider ethno-moral communities? I make this argument through a close analysis of an interview with a female interlocutor, a woman who - whilst declaring herself to be unambiguously 'Serbian' and 'Orthodox' - is uncertain about the religious transformations that she sees happening around her. Anthropologists must attend to the positionality of people who may feel at once related to and detached from societal transformations, and how they make sense of such changes in their own terms.

Keywords: Orthodox Christianity, postsocialism, religious change, Serbia

Published: February 8, 2022  Show citation

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Lackenby, N. (2021). 'They're so into it': Perceptions of 'Religion', Orthodoxy and Belonging in Post-Yugoslav Serbia. e-Rhizome, 3(2), 86-102. doi: 10.5507/rh.2021.006
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