Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Modern Paganism

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction. “We Are the Weavers, We Are the Web”: Cosmopolitan Entanglements in Modern Paganism

   • Kathryn Rountree

   Pages 1-19

3. Appropriating, Romanticizing and Reimagining: Pagan Engagements with Indigenous Animism

   • Anna Fisk

   Pages 21-42

4. Heathens in the United States: The Return to “Tribes” in the Construction of a Peoplehood

   • Jennifer Snook, Thad Horrell, Kristen Horton

   Pages 43-64

5. Only Slavic Gods: Nativeness in Polish Rodzimowierstwo

   • Scott Simpson

   Pages 65-86

6. Obsessed with Culture: The Cultural Impetus of Russian Neo-pagans

   • Victor A. Shnirelman

   Pages 87-108

7. Multiple Nationalisms and Patriotisms Among Russian Rodnovers

   • Roman Shizhenskii, Kaarina Aitamurto

   Pages 109-132

8. Blood Brothers or Blood Enemies: Ukrainian Pagans’ Beliefs and Responses to the Ukraine–Russia Crisis

   • Mariya Lesiv

   Pages 133-155

9. Canaanite Reconstructionism Among Contemporary Israeli Pagans

   • Shai Feraro

   Pages 157-177

10. Pagan Identity Politics, Witchcraft, and the Law: Encounters with Postcolonial Nationalism in Democratic South Africa

    • Dale Wallace

    Pages 179-199

11. Cosmopolitan Witchcraft: Reinventing the Wheel of the Year in Australian Paganism

    • Douglas Ezzy

    Pages 201-219

12. Cosmopolitanism, Neo-Shamans and Contemporary Māori Healers in New Zealand

    • Dawne Sanson

    Pages 221-243

13. The Spirits Are Cosmopolitan Too: Contemporary Shamanism in Malta

    • Kathryn Rountree

    Pages 245-268

14. Back Matter

    Pages 269-276

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This volume explores how Pagans negotiate local and global tensions as they craft their identities, both as members of local communities and as cosmopolitan “citizens of the world.” Based on cutting edge international  case studies from Pagan communities in the United States, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Malta, it considers how modern Pagans negotiate tensions between the particular and universal, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, ethnicity, and world citizenship. The burgeoning of modern Paganisms in recent decades has proceeded alongside growing globalization and human mobility, ubiquitous Internet use, a mounting environmental crisis, the re-valuing of indigenous religions, and new political configurations. Cosmopolitanism and nationalism have both influenced the weaving of unique local Paganisms in diverse contexts. Pagans articulate a strong attachment to local or indigenous traditions and landscapes, constructing paths that reflect local socio-cultural, political, and historical realities. However, they draw on the Internet and the global circulation of people and universal ideas. This collection considers how they confound these binaries in fascinating, complex ways as members of local communities and global networks. 

• Modern Paganism
• Contemporary Paganism and Globalisation
• Native Faith
• Indigenous religion
• Indigenous culture
• Modern western Witchcraft
• New religions
• Nature and culture
• Internet and religion
• Ancestral Fire of Slavic Native Faith

• Auckland, New Zealand

  Kathryn Rountree

Kathryn Rountree is Professor of Anthropology at Massey University, New Zealand.  She has published on contemporary Paganism in Malta and New Zealand, feminist spirituality, sacred sites, shamanism and animism. Books include Contemporary Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe (2015), Crafting Contemporary Pagan Identities in a Catholic Society (2010), Embracing the Witch and the Goddess (2004) and the co-edited Archaeology of Spiritualities (2012).

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