Queering Consecrated Life: The Religious/Spiritual Practice of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Online first
This paper employs ethnographic research methods to examine the religious/spiritual practices of the Berlin Order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a non-Catholic order of queer nuns. It outlines the Order’s origins and development, its organisational structures, and its complex relationship with institutionalised religions. Within their community, the Sisters expand traditional notions of family to include both the local and international members of the Order. Through their community work, they both subvert and reproduce hegemonic conditions present in broader society and within the queer community. This paper focuses in particular on the Sisters’ communal and embodied religious/spiritual practices, exploring how such practices can facilitate processes of transformation. Their communal practices can transform experiences of discrimination into productive forms of community work, while their embodied practices allow them to transcend binary gender norms and reconcile perceived ‘misalignments’ between sex, gender identity, and gender expression.
queer religiosities; nun; gender; transgender; religious and spiritual practices
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