Becky Tyndall, a Theology and Religion PhD student, was able to attend the Ecclesiology and Ethnography Conference thanks to a grant from the St John’s Student Opportunities Fund.
Due to a generous grant from the St John’s Student Opportunities Fund I was able to take part in the Ecclesiology and Ethnography conference in September 2023. The UK conference is hosted annually in Durham at St John’s college and seeks to bring together international scholars and practitioners interested in the intersection of theology, practice and qualitative research. Despite being attended by prominent scholars in the field it has a very warm, informal ethos. As a PhD student in the theology department this conference was on ‘home turf’ for me so it felt like the ideal place to deliver my first ever conference paper.
The three day conference incorporated a variety of different plenary lectures and shorter papers by both established academics and PhD students like myself. Particular highlights included the panel discussion on the first evening about the future of qualitative research and theology, a paper on participative research methods with minimally verbal autistic churchgoers and Prof Mat Guest’s keynote about neoliberalism and religion.
As well as the papers, mealtimes and social evenings in the college bar offered plenty of opportunities to chat to others about their research and have my own thinking sharpened by their questions. My research is about the experiences of working-class priests in the Church of England. Discussing this one morning at breakfast with a friendly group of scholars from Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark offered fascinating insights about the nature of class, its relation to religion and the role of the established church. When I delivered my paper on Saturday, the group were encouraging and attentive and I found myself enjoying it, despite the nerves. One particular question from a UK academic from a totally different academic field challenged my thinking and she has kindly kept in touch beyond the conference. These kinds of connections are probably the most valuable thing to come from conferences.
One of the conference organisers, Prof Pete Ward, is a keen bluegrass musician and the conference music night has become a traditional highlight of the event. I spent the evening in the college bar talking to other PhD students about juggling research and young children and the challenges of making our research participative and what solidarity means as a theologian. All of this took place with the sounds of bluegrass in the next room as voices and musicians dipped in and out and the whole room eventually joined in with ‘Fly Fly Away’.
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