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IUS Monthly Seminar Series 2023-24 on Urban Ethnography and Theory. 

Organized by Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato (University of Kent, UK) on behalf of International Urban Symposium-IUS In partnership with National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Dept of Sociology (Greece) & City, University of London (UK) Endorsed by Centre for Ethnographic Research, University of Kent (UK).

The fourth online Seminar in this Series will take place on Thursday 25 January 2024, 16.00-17.30 (BST).

Speaker: Liora Sarfati, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Title: Globalization, Urbanization, and the Cosmopolitanization of Korea’s Vernacular Religion. 

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Abstract: Cosmopolitanism has often been used to discuss religions that had been institutionalized, canonized, and then transmitted globally through premodern cultural flows. In contrast, vernacular religions have maintained their local uniqueness in terms of pantheons, belief systems, practices, and ritual objects—even into the 21st century. This talk discusses the cultural and societal conditions that have enabled the vernacular traditions of Korean shamanism (musok) to travel globally in real and virtual worlds. Not all Korean shamans (mudang) work with foreigners, but the four ethnographic case studies that will be examined are cosmopolitan practitioners. They assert that spirits can communicate beyond spoken languages, that mudang clients do not have to be Koreans, and that media depictions are a vehicle for making the practice available to more people in Korea and worldwide. Such international activity has become an easily achievable task in hypermodern conditions. The vernacular is flexible in meaning and usage because institutions do not supervise it and it is often an undocumented oral tradition. Mudang constantly recreate musok practices from their personal interpretation of the religious experience. Thus, when musok goes global, it is reinterpreted and transformed to fit the cultural understandings of the target audiences. 

 

BIO 

Liora Sarfati, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Sociocultural Anthropology in the Department of East Asian Studies of Tel Aviv University. She has conducted extensive anthropological field research in South Korea. Her specialisms span religion, society, culture and the media in Korea, Israel and Japan. Her main research from 2005 is about Korea’s vernacular religion. Since summer 2014, Dr Sarfati has also conducted research among protesters in downtown Seoul who demanded investigation of the Sewǒl Ferry’s sinking. Her research methods include urban ethnography, media analysis and folklore research. She has published several peer-reviewed essays. Her book From Ritual to the World Wide Web: Mediated Representations of Korean Shamanism is now under consideration for publication.