Ehler Voss: In search of spirits and their mediums in contemporary Germany: Doing fieldwork among different scenes
<p class=”p15bottom”>Contact to usually invisible entities such as gods, spirits, fairies, angels, and so on, is common for many people all over the world. Also in Germany, many, even well-educated people, are familiar with such practices which often occur in the wide context of healing. In this, particular healers act in different ways as mediums for different entities to enable them to curatively affect help-seeking clients.</p>
<p class=”p15bottom”>During my PhD-research in contemporary Germany I followed the metaphor of „mediumistic healing” and came in contact with different, mostly transnational scenes, each of them with their own vocabulary, techniques, social organisation and ideas about mediumship. Nevertheless, followers often participate in different scenes and combine their practices in everyday life.</p>
<p class=”p15bottom”>These scenes are involved in different ways in global processes. On the one hand, their discourses are widely influenced by world-wide circulating metaphors concerning bodies, illness and healing and on the other hand, their members show extensive mobility; on a regular basis they travel within Germany as well as internationally to events typical of particular scenes. These events mostly take place in varying locations which are usually temporally rented and often chosen for pragmatic reasons. Furthermore, there are also efforts to establish alternative centres, where these events as well as similar activities can appropriately and steadily be held.</p>
<p class=”p15bottom”>This presentation examines the consequences resulting from such translocal field-conception for anthropological research and discusses what theoretical and methodological approaches can be applied.</p>