Globalisation and the flow of people, images, objects or ideas have become a commonplace in social theory over the past fifteen years or so, as has the fact that religion has not only shown resilience within this context, but is in fact thriving.
In my own research, I focus on eBay, the internet auction site as one particular instance of a transnational network and its employment within a specific Roman-Catholic context: to the dismay of Church officials and some lay interest groups, eBay has for some years been the platform of a small, yet lively trade in relics. While commonly very much regarded as manifestation of an antiquated, even medieval piety, relics are still produced as a matter of course by the Catholic Church. Typically, their distribution tends to be closely controlled within channels of an ecclesiastical gift economy, yet the success of eBay, with its global reach and relatively decentralised structure, has eased access and changed the terms of participation. It has set in motion a flow of objects across continents, between Church institutions, antiques dealers, traditionalist believers and collectors, engaged in a continuous process of authoring and negotiating religious meaning between “popular devotions” and “modern spirituality”, a process of dis- and emplacement that, for its working, simultaneously adheres to and subverts official authority.
Researching such practices required an approach different from old-school fieldwork. While involving investigation “on the ground”, this “ground” can and does shift, from Rome to other Italian cities and beyond, into the “virtual” space of eBay and to email contacts - a patchwork of observational and participatory practices, often difficult to stitch together into a coherent whole.