Bowers, Sarah (2005) Finding the spirituality of Ukrainian students in a post Soviet world: a visual ethnography. Doctoral thesis, King's College London.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This dissertation is a qualitative investigation of contemporary spirituality among young people in Ukraine. Method rather than theory drives it, though the thesis rests on the premise that Ukrainian culture is deeply visual in a way that is untypical of Western Europe. After tracing the religious history of Ukraine, and against a backdrop of Eastern Orthodox iconography and Soviet artistic realism, the grounds for assuming Ukraine to be a visual culture are made clear. The thesis adopts an innovative visual ethnographic approach to discover how young people are developing their own spirituality in a post Soviet society that is subject to a shifting influx of foreign images and the free market of beliefs. Although, like much of Eastern Europe, national identity and religiosity have been closely related in Ukraine, many young people have been cut adrift from their religious traditions and, as the field-work data shows, are seeking to regain a sense of identity, and in some cases, transcendence, through their own spiritual quests. Utilising a non-Confessional definition of spirituality and after preliminary pilot studies, an intensive investigation was conducted over a ten-month period. Beginning in September 2001, and following some initial participant observation and usage of two research surveys, the thesis adopted a narrative case study approach leading to the selection of a group of twenty students in the Ukrainian city of Kiev. These students were interviewed about their use of images in their living space using a visual ethnography. This methodology was augmented by interviews using photo elicitation methods from an archive of fifty-five images selected to represent various aspects of youth culture. The research findings reveal that all participants displayed images on their wall for personal pleasure and to express their identity. Many used them to express their spirituality in terms of institutional religion and/or a search for meaning, community affiliation, security and transcendence. When traditional religious forms did not satisfy students, they invented their own religious beliefs with accompanying images. The findings indicated an urgent search for a satisfying spirituality in the midst of a fragmented landscape of subcultures frequently expressed through non-traditional religious forms.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | iconography, Soviet artistic realism, national identity, spiritual quest, non-traditional religious forms |
| Subjects: | B Mission theology/theory > Spirituality B Mission theology/theory > Research Methodology G Christian traditions/Denominations > Eastern Orthodox G Christian traditions/Denominations > Other |
| Divisions: | Former Soviet Union > Ukraine |
| Depositing User: | Users 3 not found. |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Feb 2021 11:25 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Feb 2021 11:25 |
| URI: | https://ceeamsprints.osims.org/id/eprint/1865 |
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