Anita Scheuermann, née Neudorfer

Re-sonating subjects modes of subjectivation by singing practitioners in the German-speaking popular-religious field

In the last years the terms “salvation” and “healing” have become more and more important in popular religious discourses, whereby their meaning has changed from physical integrity to emotional well-being. The emerging market for somatic practices ranges from 'shamanic' ancestral healing, yoga and the channeling of angels to the medical and therapeutic service sector. A common ground of the actors in the field is the rejection of the primacy of a device-fixated, pathogenetic medicine towards a holistic approach which - according to the dictum in the discourse - focuses on people and their salvation.In the discourse arena, performance-free singing is an important medium for the healing process, as it combines attentive listening to oneself with the transcendence experience of a common sounding group. In order to approach this phenomenon, in this study (1) qualitative-empirical data are collected from recent holistic and post-traditional singing communities and their structures are developed, (2) these are embedded in the general discourse and (3) the results are located in the sociology of religion.The following research questions are in the foreground of this qualitative exploratory study on healing and singing in a holistic milieu:a) How is 'healing' constructed by individuals and in discourse? Who or what is 'healed' by what?b) How do biographical interpretations relate to discursive statements?c) Which subject forms are produced and how is the subjective order of knowledge shaped?The work does not aim at the modes of action of healing singing, but on the positioning of subjectification processes in this discourse of singing, healing and identity, with special consideration of an emic understanding of healing. Statements of individual actors are contrasted with the offers of the discourse in the sense of the empirical double perspective. In this way, the work contributes to a better understanding of a popular-religious subject in late modernity and, last but not least, to the typology of resonance in recent socio-religious practices.