CHAPTER 2: A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY 77 could act as canonical precedents (respectively perceived as a good or a bad thing). This study will not make such canonical claims. Based on the presuppositions expressed by Swinton and Mowat, it can only speak of a “potentially transformative resonance”205 of this practice, or, more specifically: of the theology embedded in this practice. This study collects accounts of the experiences of monastic communities practicing Eucharistic hospitality, as well as their own interpretation of these experiences, by interviewing some of the monastics. As such, it can be labeled as ethnographic research. James Spickard, critical of Swinton’s broad use of the term, defines ethnography as follows: It does gather people’s beliefs, identities, reports of acts, etc. on a deep level, but it is not interested in them as markers of those people’s individuality. Instead, it is interested in the extent to which they are shared in whatever socio-cultural scene those people inhabit. Ethnography is also interested in those scenes’ hidden social patterns: the things that typically go unremarked but that structure the social lives of people living together.206 This study, indeed, is not so much interested in the respondents’ narratives as reconstructions of their respective identities, but intends, rather, to explore their experiences related to the phenomenon of Eucharistic sharing within their collective context. The biographies of the respondents act as access points to these experiences and the theology embedded in them, disclosing this perspective for the ongoing dialogue. Biographic narratives The qualitative interviews conducted in this research aim at articulating the interviewees’ biographic narratives, following the insights of Johannes Först and Heinz-Günther Schöttler. They argue that “[t]oday, recollection and narration can potentially open up something like a view on the 205 Swinton and Mowat, Practical Theology and Qualitative Research, 47 (italics in original). 206 James V. Spickard, “The Porcupine Tango: What Ethnography Can and Cannot Do for Theologians,” Ecclesial Practices 3, no. 2 (November 21, 2016): 174, https://doi.org/10.1163/22144471-00302003.
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