It’s about the Journey: Spirituality as an Aspirational Identity

• In Event: 526 - Regular Session. Narrative, Biography and Culture

Abstract

Drawing on case studies of two organizations – an Integral Yoga studio and a Catholic prayer house – this paper analyzes how teachers, texts and students describe and narrate the process of spiritual formation. I find that the narratives of becoming circulating in these communities mirror an epic literary format in which individuals are continuously confronting and overcoming obstacles in pursuit of an ever-elusive goal (Thornborrow and Brown 2009). I refer to this ideal typical narrative form, with its central unifying logic of progressive attainment, as the journey narrative, and dedicate the first half of the paper to elucidating its central characteristics. In doing so, I highlight similarities and differences with previously identified ideal typical self-change narratives both within and outside of the religious field. In the second half of the paper, I analyze the “cultural work” (DeGloma 2007, Wuthnow 2011) performed by the structure of this shared narrative. First, I argue that the journey narrative both depicts and helps to construct the spiritual self as an aspirational – rather than an ascribed or achieved – identity. By transforming practitioners into perpetual aspirants, this narrative form therefore helps to sustain practitioners’ commitment to the practice and identification with the community through time. Lastly, I argue that the journey narrative is used to perform ‘boundary-work,’ helping practitioners distinguish themselves and the community from culturally salient out-groups in the broader cultural field.

Author

• Erin F Johnston, Princeton University