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Using Communications Theory to Explore Emergent Organisation in Pagan Culture*

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Using Communications Theory to Explore Emergent Organisation in Pagan Culture* ARSR 24.2 (2011): 150-174 ARSR (print) ISSN 1031-2943 doi: 10.1558/arsr.v24i2.150 ARSR (online) ISSN 1744-9014 Using Communications Theory to Explore Emergent Organisation in Pagan Culture* Angela Coco* Southern Cross University Abstract Pagan culture presents a paradoxical case to the traditional frameworks and methodologies social scientists have used to describe religious organi- sation. A key factor influencing Paganism’s emergence has been its adop- tion of online communications. Such communications provide a means of coordinating activities in and between networks accommodating diverse beliefs and practices and the ability to avoid overarching hierarchical organisation. These characteristics have led theorists to label Paganism as a postmodern religion, signalling the possibility of a different kind of social organisation from that evidenced in modern religions. Karaflogka (2003) distinguishes between two aspects of the move online, religion in cyberspace and religion on the Internet. While the Internet may be an online place for cybercovens and for performing cyber rituals, the analysis in this paper focuses on the interweaving of online and offline communic- ative practices. I suggest that communications theories, as outlined in Wenger’s ‘communities of practice’ model (1998) and Taylor and Van Every’s (2000) communications mapping, afford frameworks for exploring the inter-connectedness of online/offline interactions and a means of identifying emergent organisation in the Pagan movement. The analysis focuses on a particular feature of Pagan organisation, the accommodation of both group-oriented and solitary pagans. Keywords Pagan, communication theory, information and communication technologies, Pagan organisation, postmodern religion * I would like to offer my thanks to the anonymous reviewers of this paper whose constructive suggestions motivated considerable improvements. * This article was scheduled to appear in ARSR 23(3) (2010), a special edition on ‘Religion and Spirituality in Cyberspace’, but due to space limitations was held over to the next regular issue. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011, Unit S3, Kelham House, 3, Lancaster Street, Sheffield S3 8AF. Coco Using Communications Theory 151 Introduction Information and communication technologies (ICTs), consumerism and the role of media in cultural construction are key factors influencing the postmodern condition. These social forces enable access to a variety of worldviews and the coordination of social engagements across times and spaces previously inaccessible (Castells 2001: 1-2). Such social changes in the structures of social interaction have been accompanied by calls for a new mapping of the religious terrain (e.g., Roof 1999; Lyon 2000; Heelas and Woodhead 2005). Syncretism, personal self-reflection and the negotiation of a mediated community are typical features of the Pagan environment (Berger 1999; Beyer 2003; Ezzy and Berger 2007). Roof (1999: 203) counts Pagans among those individuals he describes as ‘metaphysical believers and seekers’, people who dismiss the ‘religious’ title as invoking some form of organisational affiliation, but who adopt a ‘spiritual’ label. He maintains that Paganism’s survival depends on ‘sec- ondary institutions’ such as the media, bookstores, retreat and therapeutic industries and music industries (Roof 1999: 307). Texts available online and offline in the spiritual market place provide common sources of ideas that mediate the emergence of a sense of Pagan identity and organisation (Berger and Ezzy 2004: 181; Coco and Woodward 2007). Pagans perform religiously both as solitaries (practicing ritual alone) and in groups (Berger and Ezzy 2004: 177; Cowan 2005: 82). Groups may evidence strict hierarchical organisation with associated roles, usually priestess and priest, or flatter organisation with shared leadership. York (1995: 324-29) describes the broader Pagan social structure as a ‘Segmented Polycentric Integrated Network’. However, while such a computational model might map parts of an organisational structure, it cannot tell us what happens at and between the nodes in the network, how continuity in meaning and practice is produced and main- tained (Taylor and Van Every 2000). This paper suggests that communi- cations theories as described by Wenger (1998) and Taylor and Van Every (2000) provide a way of examining how Pagans bridge the gaps between online and offline places and, in so doing, enact certain types of organisation. The pervasiveness of media underpinning cultural authority and iden- tity construction suggests researchers focus on ‘religion as communi- cation’ (Lyon 2000: 56). Communication is the key to reality and identity construction and the means by which either/or dichotomies are bridged. The social fabric has become a mesh of flexible networks in which each individual is a node where many discursive flows may intersect (Lyotard 1984: 18; Castells 2001: 130-31). Such heightened intertextuality pro- duces an endless variety of ways that new identities can be constructed © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011. 152 ARSR 24.2 (2011) and articulated (Kristeva 1980: 15; Lyon 2000: 56). Historically, theories of community-seeking via online communications have suffered from entrenched dualisms between ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ or ‘online’ and ‘offline’ timespaces (Haythornthwaite and Wellman 2002: 8). However, social interactions on the Web are embedded in and cannot be divorced from the meanings and structures operational in people’s everyday lives (Berger and Ezzy 2004; Hampton 2004; Young 2004; Baym 2007). Methodologically, this directs research attention to surveying online and offline communications in their interconnectedness. The ways connections and continuity of meaning are achieved between online and offline communicative practices are clearly demonstrated in an Australian Pagan community which I have called Summerland (Coco 2008a). Communications theory provides models for analysing how partici- pants in a group interact, produce knowledge and develop practices that bind them in ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger 1998) or organisations (Taylor and Van Every 2000). In the vast majority of research, Wenger’s framework has been used as a typology for intentionally creating ‘com- munities of practice’ in the service of education, corporate organisations and virtual worlds (Merriam, Courtenay and Baumgartner 2003: 171; Barton and Tusting 2005: 3). Less frequent are studies that explore informally developed, mobile and continuously changing groups not bounded by pre-set organisational structures and relationships (e.g., Merriam, Courtenay and Baumgartner 2003; Keating 2005). Developed with Lave from their earlier work on situated learning (Lave and Wenger 1991), Wenger’s (1998) model provides a mid-range theory that can be applied ‘to locate people, practices and communities’ but not the means for exploring how these are positioned in relation to broader social and discursive orders (Keating 2005: 127). Barton and Tusting (2005: 12) critique Wenger’s framework suggesting that it needs to incor- porate a model of ‘language in use’, attend to the problems of power and conflict within communities and incorporate the foregoing into discussions of broader social contexts. It is in the delineation of the ways language is employed and deployed that Taylor and Van Every’s model can make a link between a ‘community of practice’ and its broader social context. Taylor and Van Every’s communications concept of mapping extends the identification of locally constructed knowledge, produced texts and meanings to demonstrate how these enact a broader organisational culture. They theorise the dynamic interplay of actors/texts, interlocutors and environment, that is, how organisation emerges in the interstices between locally situated communicative activity and globally accepted and dispersed meanings evident in authorised texts. The ‘hardwiring of texts’ (Taylor and Van Every 2000: 277) brings tacit understandings of © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011. Coco Using Communications Theory 153 actors to the surface, thereby enacting values and practices and revealing the shape of an emergent organisation. In this paper, I focus on one notable feature of Pagan culture, what Cowan (2005: 82) refers to as a ‘tension’ between solitaries and group- oriented Pagans. There may be tensions in the online groups Cowan studies where solitaries discuss their treatment by group-oriented Pagans. I have noted similar reactions offline at large gatherings where group- oriented Pagans attend as a group and solitaries feel, and sometimes are, excluded from some group activities. I discuss the reasons the group– solitary nexus may present a conundrum for both theorists and practi- tioners and the usefulness of a different methodological approach to understanding the phenomena. Next, I outline the salient features of Wenger’s (1998) and Taylor and Van Every’s (2000) models. These frameworks are used to analyse information gained from ethnographic research to demonstrate how communications theories of group dynamics can be used for identifying emergent Pagan organisation. Suggestions for future research are then offered. The Group–Solitary Practitioner Conundrum Socially speaking, it is tempting to equate solitaries with individualists, those people theorised by Durkheim (1993) and contemporarily portrayed by Putnam (2000) who are not integrated with any religious or social group. Religions traditionally have promoted shared values and provided plausibility structures by which individuals
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