This paper troubles research approaches in practical theology by exploring how attention to lived experiences of marginalisation in postcolonial feminist theologies shapes theological methodologies. Drawing on the work of Walter Mignolo and Marcella Althaus-Reid, the margins are explored as epistemological and material sites that shape theological knowledge production. The complex intersections of experiences and identities of lives on the margins require a resistance to taxonomic or technical theological methodologies. As discussed by Mayra Rivera and Ada María Isasi-Díaz, the margins are not sites of deprivation, but of critical praxis, so theological methodology must be attentive to everyday experiences of the margins. The paper highlights where postcolonial feminist theologies add to practical theology about poetics by attending to making meaning. The paper concludes by reflecting on academic engagement with postcolonial feminist theology and the lived experiences of the margins.
This article is a methodological experiment in 'live' theology. It reflects on the difficulty of creating theological meaning in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Drawing on trauma theology, disability theology, and autoethnographic reflections, we explore a particular "double bind" between silence and speech. While hurried speech can foreclose meaning and cause deep damage in the midst of unfolding trauma, theological silence risks concealing existing injustices that have been intensified by COVID-19. As such, we focus on intersections of race, class, poverty, disability, and legal status. Examining the tensions between overwork and inactivity in pandemic time, we consider dislocated time as resistance to hasty solutions, the rush towards resurrection hope, and modes of redemptive productivity. We confront the desires of practical theology to be found useful in times of trauma, and instead point towards theological practices of fragmented speech and remaining in dislocated time.
This article explores the emerging trajectory of creative arts-based research methods in practical theology. Creative arts-based approaches work with the embodied, material, imaginative, and sacred, foregrounding questions of representation and interpretation. Whilst seen as novel or emerging, creative methods fulfil key practical theological tasks and reveal the roots of the discipline as already creative and constructive. Drawing on Westfield's engagement with poetry and poetic writing, Byrne's studio-based visual arts practice, and Walton's life writing and autoethnography, the article examines the distinctiveness of creative methods in representing lived experiences and generating new, liberative theologies. The article engages collaborative creative arts-based research to discuss practical and ethical issues in undertaking these methods. The paper concludes by reflecting on the possibilities for the future of practical theologies shaped through creative methods.
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