Vulnerability, liminality, ritual – a social and religiously relevant power structure

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Hildegund Keul
• Subject Area: Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 561309170

The project’s main research thesis is that, in times of constant change and mutually reinforcing crises in religion and society, clear analyses of the dynamic power structure of vulnerability, liminality, and ritual are required. Liminality is the turbulent state of transition that arises from the collapse of traditional orders, hierarchies, and patterns of action, thus causing social or (inter)religious crises. Liminality confronts us with the unknown and the alien, creates insecurity and therefore harbors the danger of vulnerant ‘othering’ (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak), diminishing the value of the other to enhance one’s own. But it also offers the opportunity for individuals, groups, and societies to transform their lives for the better. Rituals, in turn, are designed to cope with liminality and to channel the dangerous vulnerance that characterizes this liminality. They are behind the transformation that crises compel. They can increase (e.g., war rituals) or decrease (e.g,. reconciliation rituals) the threat of vulnerance; they can weaken (e.g., rituals of abuse) or strengthen (e.g., healing rituals) resilience. Thus, this research topic, i.e., the precarious power structure of ‘vulnerability, liminality, ritual’, is of great significance for religion and society. So far, however, the corresponding research fields of vulnerability research and ritual studies have existed side by side without any connection being made between them. The main aim of the project is thus to introduce ‘liminality and ritual’ into vulnerability research as key concepts and thus build a viable bridge between the research fields for the first time. The project’s particular significance and current relevance are that it enables a differentiated analysis of the power structure under investigation in social and (inter)religious crises. It therefore significantly expands vulnerability research and promises a gain in knowledge of interdisciplinary relevance. This fundamental research investigates the power effects of vulnerability in liminal events and ritual processes, critically advancing Victor W. Turner’s ritual theory from the perspective of vulnerability theory. In addition, it applies the analysis of the complex power structure to contemporary issues: to the crisis of abuse, cover-ups, and disclosure in the Catholic Church on the one hand and, in an interdisciplinary way, to the analysis of social and (inter)religious transformation processes at the intersection of migration and religion on the other. Since othering also proves to be a problematic strategy here because it increases vulnerance, the project investigates the analytical power that ‘incarnation as a countermovement to othering’ unfolds in problematic situations of liminality. In doing so, it makes a theological contribution to research into the vulnerability dispositive that emerged in the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to gain in importance.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants