The vow of stability

An ethnography of monastic life

Richard D.G. Irvine

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English

Scottish Universities Press
20 May 2025

Religious communities & monasticism; Social & cultural anthropology

Though monastic life is often imagined to be a flight from the world, Benedictine monks take on the intense social commitment of life in close community. Drawing on long-term anthropological fieldwork in a Catholic English Benedictine monastery, The vow of stability: An ethnography of monastic life traces the monks' daily lives as they confront the eternal in the fabric of the everyday.

Bringing into focus the vow of stability - a lifelong commitment to the monastery and its community - this ethnography explores the rhythms and architecture that sustain shared life in a world of movement and fleeting interaction. At the same time, it analyses those social processes that damage and undermine the monastic institution and those in contact with it - in particular the harm caused by sexual abuse.

Engaging with the everyday dynamics of life in close community while paying close attention to the time-depth of monastic history, this is a study of how religious institutions endure and change through generations.

By: Richard D.G. Irvine
Imprint: Scottish Universities Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 386g
ISBN: 9781917341080
ISBN 10: 1917341083
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 20 May 2025
Audience: College/higher education , General/trade , Further / Higher Education , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Richard D.G. Irvine is Senior Lecturer and Director of Teaching in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews. His work spans the anthropology of religion and environmental anthropology, and he has carried out fieldwork in the UK and Mongolia.

Reviews for The vow of stability: An ethnography of monastic life

'Irvine's particular contribution includes work that results from having done fieldwork inside the cloister of a male monastic community in the Western Christian tradition, which is, to my knowledge, novel in the literature. Irvine also addresses some of the social and ideological incongruities of monasticism in society - here, namely child sexual abuse - which is a sobering reality in need of greater ethnographic investigation.' Paula Pryce, Cultural Anthropologist at the University of British Columbia