Giulia Evolvi
The MERGE project aims at exploring media narratives produced by Catholic-inspired social movements, with a focus on digital media. Specifically, it analyses the heterogeneity of modern Catholicism by studying how progressive and conservative movements discuss gender issues. Gender issues are mainly understood as narratives concerning feminism, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and gender equality. Starting from a transnational perspective, the project seeks to collect data in both North America and Europe. Hence, the project explores how Catholic identities and communities can develop within social movements not to promote practices and beliefs, but rather to mobilize activists with a common goal in a transnational effort.
The project is interdisciplinary and situates itself at the intersection of sociology of religion/religious studies, political science/social movements, and communication/media studies, while offering to each of these fields an innovative contribution. Sociology of religion, and more specifically the area of religion and media studies, has indeed largely explored gender issues (Reilly & Scriever 2018; Lovheim 2013; Peterson 2022; Giorgi 2021). However, this literature has often focused on case studies or national contexts, lacking the transnational perspective of MERGE. Differently, political science has dealt with religiously-inspired movements, especially with regard to anti-gender campaigns (Paternotte&Rochefort 2018; Lavizzari 2021; Carnac 2020). If, however, there is interest in conservative religious movements, there is a lack of study of progressive religious movements, which MERGE explores. The field of media and communication is interested in the study of communication practices within mobilisations (Mattoni 2016, 2020; Della Porta & Diani 2017; Treré 2019). Nevertheless, there are not many studies on mobilisations involving gender and religion, a gap that MERGE aims to fill.
MERGE is a Maria Skłodowska Curie Global project (project number 2023_MSCA_MERGE_SPS) funded for 36 months (December 2023 - December 2026) with an outgoing phase at the University of Colorado Boulder (U.S.) and University of Pittsburgh (U.S.).
European Commission - Maria Skłodowska Curie Global Fellowship
Maria Skłodowska Curie Global