Focus Group 'Purity'

Purity is an important symbolic, semantic and cultural category which is discernable within many religious traditions and which has operated and continues to operate as a means of dividing the world into binary or even opposing fields the pure and the impure. As such, it represents a particularly appropriate field for research in a consortium focussed on the dynamics of religions, i.e. on phenomenon of interfaith contact and transfer. The category of purity is closely related to the subjects of other focus groups such as 'secrecy' and opens wide opportunities for comparative research between Europe and Asia.