A good friend of the Grove, Dr Suzanne Owen, is undertaking a research project into contemporary Druidry and has produced a questionnaire to help gather data for this work.
Anyone wishing to take part can download the questionnaire in Word format from http://www.wightdruids.co.uk/Downloads/Questionnaire.doc or contact scribe@wightdruids.co.uk for a PDF version which can be printed off and returned by post.
Suzanne writes:
“My background: I was born in England, grew up near San Francisco and moved to Scotland in the mid-eighties. While I was working on my PhD thesis on native North American spirituality at the University of Edinburgh, another student began researching contemporary Scottish Druidry. I introduced her to a couple of Druids I knew and acted as her driver to get to locations for Druid ceremonies. Together we joined the Druids of Albion (founded by the late Chris Turner) until it ended. I was interested in Druidry myself, having once started the OBOD course in the mid- to late-eighties (but did not finish) and was a member of a group that met for the eight festivals in the Borders. Since September 2008, I have been lecturing in Religious Studies at Leeds Trinity.
“The research project: I am interested in ways in which Druids connect with the local (land, myth, community, language, etc) and the global (spiritual outlook, networks, other traditions, etc.). The idea came through my participation with the Druids of Albion alongside research among the Mi’kmaq (First Nations) of Newfoundland when I noticed similarities, including engagements with the local and global. This led me to consider how ‘indigenous religions’ are defined and categorised and the extent to which this is politically motivated rather than based on experience, or on empirical observations.
“Methodology: I work from a Religious Studies perspective, which takes into account historical developments, social dimensions, personal experiences and spiritual/philosophical questions. I have never used a questionnaire before. For the PhD, I observed, participated and engaged in informal conversations. Recently, while preparing to visit a group in Northern Ireland, I began to think about the questions I could ask in order to structure my research a bit more, which led to a short questionnaire. Later, I hope to have a few conversations with individuals to expand on these questions.
“Outcomes: The most immediate outcome will be a paper presented at the American Academy of Religion conference in Montreal (November 2009) called ‘Indigenous religious expressions? Mi’kmaq Tradition and British Druidry’. Based on fieldwork in Newfoundland and Britain, the paper explores whether Mi’kmaq tradition and Druidry can share a mutual discourse as indigenous religious expressions. In the long term, I would like to produce a book on either exploring the idea of ‘indigenous religion’ or contemporary Druidry. For the latter, I would be interested in collaborating with others, including practitioners. One idea could be to have sections by academics and practitioners interspersed, perhaps in dialogue with each other. As there are a few academics studying Druidry who are also practitioners, the sections would not be ‘set against’ each other, but rather be covering a range of perspectives.”
AS I write, the sun is blazing through the window, the daffodils in the little front garden are nodding in gentle conversation, now full and proud in their blooming. Buds and the first blossoms are everywhere, as the land begins to put on her full mantle of beauty.