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Teaching and transforming tradition: an ethnography of social learning in Swedish Wicca
Malmö University, Faculty of Education and Society (LS), Department of Society, Culture and Identity (SKI).ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2092-8757
2025 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This paper delves into the relatively uncharted territory of the didactics of ritual practice within contemporary esotericism, in an ethnographic study of the Wiccan Aine tradition (founded in Sweden in 1992). Like Wicca in general, the Aine tradition is a polytheistic, nature-oriented, esoteric religion organized in small groups called covens. The coven functions as a community of practice, where members are educated through three initiatory degrees over a minimum of seven years. Compared to many of its international antecedents, the development of Wicca in Sweden exhibits a pronounced didactical trait, inspired by secular educational milieus. It also re-negotiates common Wiccan gender norms as a part of a novel pedagogical approach to polarity in ritual practice. These intertwined aspects of teaching and learning are explored through a case study of how coven members are trained in the art of creating, leading, and performing rituals. The analysis sheds light on how ritual virtuosity and religious expertise are developed and validated, and why this process revitalizes, diversifies, and transforms ritual practices over time. In addressing how the Aine tradition's educational agenda intersects with its progressive approaches to gender, this paper connects negotiation and innovation to the process of teaching and learning, which has implications for better understanding religious change.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025.
National Category
Religious Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-79531OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-79531DiVA, id: diva2:1998891
Conference
IAHR: the XXIII International Association for the History of Religions World Congress, August 24–30, 2025, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Projects
Religion som lärande: en etnografi av wicca i Sverige med fokus på pedagogik
Funder
The Crafoord Foundation, 20240825)Available from: 2025-09-18 Created: 2025-09-18 Last updated: 2026-02-06Bibliographically approved

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Cejvan, Olivia

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
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  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf