Spiritual Instability: Reflections on Ambiguity in Performative Spirituality

This essay first reflects on key ideas that currently shape critical conversations about how the materiality of performance engages an embodied, material sense of spirit and matter. Two hypothetical case studies, based on fieldwork, then illustrate a nuance in that discussion that suggests critical attention to another key idea: the variability of performative effects and subjective affect in spiritually-oriented performances.