Should we view nuns as oppressed or agentic? A woman’s identity is constructed on multiple sites, but the identity of the nun is primarily constructed by the patriarchal institution of the Catholic Church, which ascribes meaning to and regulates her life. This article examines the Catholic Church’s dominant discursive construction of the nun as self-sacrificing woman. It draws on a study that applied feminist and Foucauldian analysis, first, to key Church texts relating to nuns’lives and, second, to interview data of 43 Australian/New Zealand nuns, exploring ways in which nuns in this sample negotiate the Church’s dominant discursive constructions of the nun in their lived experience as nuns. Subject to male institutional authority, nuns are represented by the Church as living lives of self-sacrifice, devoting themselves wholeheartedly and single-mindedly to God and to the Church’s work. Nuns in this study’s sample actively resist such representations, exercising personal agency in making decisions about their own lives, and in living alone rather than communally. In doing so, they represent themselves as agentic rather than oppressed women.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to encourage historical research on the educational work of Catholic Sisters in Australia which includes the Sisters’ perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
– Reflecting on the experiences of research projects which sought Sisters’ perspectives on their lives and work – from archival, oral and narrative sources – the authors discuss challenges, limitations and ethical considerations. The projects on which the paper is based include: a contextual history of a girls’ school; a narrative history of Sisters in remote areas; an exploration of Sisters’ social welfare work in the nineteenth century, and a history of one section of a teaching order from Ireland.
Findings
– After discussing difficulties and constraints in accessing convent archives, issues in working with archival documents and undertaking a narrative history through interviews the authors suggest strategies for research which includes the Sisters’ voices.
Originality/value
– No one has written about the processes of researching the role of Catholic Sisters in Australian education. Whilst Sisters have been significant providers of schooling since the late nineteenth century there is a paucity of research on the topic. Even rarer is research which seeks the Sisters’ voices on their work. As membership of Catholic women’s religious orders is diminishing in Australia there is an urgent need to explore and analyse their endeavours. The paper will assist researchers to do so.
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