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    Entanglements of Difference as Community Togetherness: Faith, Art and Feminism


    Hickey-Moody, Anna and Willcox, Marissa (2019) Entanglements of Difference as Community Togetherness: Faith, Art and Feminism. Social Sciences, 8 (9). p. 264. ISSN 2076-0760

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    Abstract

    Using a feminist, new materialist frame to activate ethico-political research exploring religion and gender at a community level both on Instagram and in arts workshops, we show how sharing ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs, gender identities and sexualities through art practice entangles a diffraction of differences as ‘togetherness’. Such entanglement creates cross-cultural interfaith understandings and gender diverse acceptance and inclusion online. We use diffraction, intra-action and entanglement as a way of framing our understanding of this ‘togetherness’ and show that human feelings rely on more-than-human assemblages; they rely on homelands, countries, wars, places of worship, orientations, attractions, aesthetics, art and objects of attachment. The feelings of ‘community’ and ‘belonging’ that we discuss are therefore direct products of human and non-human interactions, which we explore through arts-based research. In this article, we apply Karen Barad’s feminist new materialist theories of ‘diffraction’, ‘intra-action’ and ‘entanglement’ to ways of thinking about human experience as intra-acting with aspects of the world that we classify as non-human. We use these new materialist frames to reconceptualize the human feelings of ‘community’, ‘belonging’ and ‘what really matters’ in feminist and intra-religious collaborative art practices and Instagram-based art communities. To better understand and encourage communities of difference, we argue that the feelings of ‘community’ and ‘belonging’, which are central to human subjectivity and experience, are produced by more-than-human assemblages and are central to identity. The methodologies we present are community focused, intra-active, arts-based research strategies for interrogating and understanding expressions of ‘community’ and ‘belonging’. We identify how creative methods are a significant and useful way of knowing about communities and argue that they are important because they are grounded in being with communities, showing that the specificity of their materiality needs to be considered.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: diffraction; intra-action; entanglement; community; togetherness; faith; art; feminism; religion; belonging; methods;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of English, Media & Theatre Studies > Media Studies
    Item ID: 19796
    Identification Number: 10.3390/socsci8090264
    Depositing User: Anna Hickey-Moody
    Date Deposited: 12 May 2025 14:36
    Journal or Publication Title: Social Sciences
    Publisher: MDPI
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/19796
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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