Researching Female Faith

Nicola Slee is Director of Research at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, UK, where she oversees the doctoral programme, Professor of Feminist Practical Theology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Visiting Professor at the University of Chester. Fran Porter is Research Fellow at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham, UK, where she is involved in supporting and developing research work at the Foundation. Anne Phillips is a Researcher, Spiritual Accompanist, Retreat Leader, and, a Church of England priest in a Peak District, UK, parish.

• Introduction; Part I: Developing Feminist Methodologies; 1 ‘Come as a Girl’: Exploring Issues of Participative Methodology for Research into the Spiritual Lives and Faith of Girls-Becoming-Women, Anne Phillips; 2 Poetry as Feminist Research Methodology in the Study of Female Faith, Nicola Slee; 3 Weaving a Web: Developing a Feminist Practical Theology Methodology from a Charismatic Perspective, Helen Collins; 4 Living Religion: Collapsing (Male Constructed?) Boundaries between the Religious and the Spiritual, Janet Eccles; Part II: Gathering Data; 5‘Sometimes You Need a Question’: Structure and Flexibility in Feminist Interviewing, Fran Porter; 6 Exploring Young Adults’ Faith Lives through Video Diaries: Consent, Voice and Power, Sarah-Jane Page; 7 Using Social Media for Feminist Qualitative Research: A Pilot Study into Women’s Experiences of Holy Communion, Kim Wasey; 8 Choosing the Right Key: Glaserian Grounded Theory, NVivo and Analysing Interviews with Survivors, Susan Shooter; Part III: Analysing Data; 9 Listening for the ‘I’: Adapting a Voice-Centred, Relational Method of Data Analysis in a Group Interview to Examine Women’s Faith Lives, Kate Massey; 10 Wholly Sound: A Feminist Reframing of the ‘Problem’ of Interview Silence as a Methodology for Discovering New Knowledge, Alison Woolley; 11 Song of a Voiceless Person: Using the Poetry of Menna Elfyn in a Study of Welsh Women’s Identity and Religion, Manon Ceridwen James; Part IV: Practising Reflexivity; 12 Reflexivity, Identity and the Role of the Researcher, Jenny Morgans; 13 Writing the Self: Using the Self in Feminist Theological Research; Jan Berry

'Nicola Slee, Fran Porter and Anne Phillips have done it again, and I am delighted they have! Following their significant volume The Faith Lives of Women and Girls, the essays collected in this new book offer fresh insights into research frameworks, gathering and analyzing data, and reflexivity specific to the study of women and girls in contemporary Christianity. Finally, researchers and students in practical, contextual, pastoral theologies and religious feminisms have a resource that speaks to their qualitative approaches, and Researching Female Faith will challenge and enrich their methodologies and methods.' – Dawn Llewellyn, Senior Lecturer in Christian Studies, University of Chester, UK