The Work of God: an Ethnography of Opus Dei
THE WORK OF GOD: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF OPUS DEI Przemysław Pi ątkowski A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Management Studies Department of Accounting, Finance & Management University of Essex July 2009 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is (...). Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there, To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets No evil shall befall you, no affliction come near your tent. For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways. With their hands they shall support you, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Psalm 91:10-12 I would like to thank all those who guarded me on my way. First and foremost, I would like to thank my family: my mother Maria, my father Stanisław, my sisters Zofia and Joanna, my grandmother Janina, my brothers: Rafał (cousin) and Jarosław (in-law), and, of course, my three lovely little nieces: Maria, Jadwiga, and Janina. I would like to thank my supervisors, Heather Höpfl and Monika Kostera, but I honestly don’t know how. Each in her very distinctive ways, you have opened up new worlds in front of me. You also let me into your lives and entered mine. It simply cannot stop here, I sincerely hope that we will stay in these relations “until death do us apart” and later.
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