The Mother, the Warrior, the Midwife and the Holy Whore: An Ethnographic Study of Women’s Faith, Sacralisation and Embodiment

Abstract

This article deliberately selects findings from a feminist, cross-cultural, multi-faith ethnographic study of women’s religious identities, interpretations and practices in Malaysia and Britain. Findings pertaining to the embodied sacred are examined in terms of religious significance towards a sacralised female iconography. Focusing on sacred female representations, three distinct domains emerge relating to symbolic, sacred regenerative powers and the potency of a gendered infecund deification, where each domain relates to aspects of religious and ritualistic aspects loosely conforming to goddess typology. A nuanced account is offered privileging the experiential regarding how participants reconcile subordinated spiritual positions within patriarchal structures and discourses in seeking responsive woman-centric faiths.