The Shiloh Project Will Be Involved in a Large Grant Focused on Spiritual Abuse
Co-director Johanna is part of a team that has been awarded a large grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for a two-and-a-half year research project on Abuse in Religious Settings. Johanna is one of three Co-Investigators, and the project is led by Gordon Lynch (University of Kent). It will bring together an experienced team of academics, professional practitioners, and people involved in support and advocacy work with survivors, and will work closely with survivors as co-producers of new insights and resources.
Abuse in Religious Settings will involve a series of connected pieces of work examining theological, organisational, and textual issues, how safeguarding professionals and faith communities work with each other, and what relevant legal and policy frameworks have been developed in different countries. It will also work with survivors to learn from their insights about the meanings that abuse in religious contexts can have, as well as what can support resilience.
Johanna’s focus builds on her work in activist uses of biblical texts and with The Shiloh Project.
The project will be structured around seven main pieces of work, with cross-cutting themes and issues between them also being studied:
- Abuse and the cultures and structures of religious organisations (literature-based study led by Gordon Lynch).
- Abuse in new religious movements: forms and organisational responses (secondary data analysis led by Sarah Harvey).
- The role of religious texts in relation to abuse (workshop-based study led by Johanna Stiebert). This will also include the production of more Shiloh Podcast episodes with the fabulous Rosie Dawson.
- International comparisons of legal and policy frameworks in relation to safeguarding and abuse in religious settings (review led by Richard Scorer).
- Exploring relationships between faith communities and safeguarding professionals in statutory bodies (survey and interview-based study led by Justin Humphreys).
- Survivor responses and resilience to abuse in religious settings (interview-based study led by Linda Woodhead and Jo Kind).
- Disclosures and non-disclosures of abuse (photo-elicitation study led by Lisa Oakley).
In addition, the project will also involve activities and events which will build new relationships between individuals and groups working in this field, both within the United Kingdom and internationally.
If you are interested in possibly contributing to and participating in Johanna’s workshops and podcast episodes (which are still in the early planning stages), please contact Johanna directly: j.stiebert@leeds.ac.uk
Workshops and podcast episodes will focus on religious texts from a range of religious traditions – not only on the Bible, Jewish or Christian traditions. We welcome postgraduates, practitioners, religious and community leaders, academics and activists working in the area of spiritual abuse and religious texts and contexts.
The project will formally begin with an initial consultation phase in March 2022, with the main research activities beginning in the autumn of 2022. Outcomes from the project are expected to be released by the spring and summer of 2024.
For more information and regular updates about the project, please visit the project website: Abuse in Religious Settings – Research at Kent
