«Soy esposa de Dios». Una etnografía sobre la construcción de la identidad femenina en los conventos de vida contemplativa

Abstract

The perpetual adorers are part of a community of Christian women of contemplative life. These are Christian women who decided at some point in their adult lives to become cloistered nuns. When the adorers become part of the community, renounce to their individual freedom, as well as free movement through the city and public spaces, as a personal sacrifice in order to be able to worship the divinity constantly, unlike other religious. From an ethnographic perspective, this end-of-degree project analyses the construction of religious women based on a fieldwork that was carried out in a Convent of Contemplative Life in a city that is part of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. In order to approach to this religious reality, I have participated in several activities that were carried out in a communal and regular way, such as Masses and other religious rituals. The daily work in which they are subjected is mainly based on the care work that they practice daily, both inside and outside the limits of the convent. Thanks to this immersion carried out for two years, I have concluded that the activities related to the care are those that still mark the construction of the identity of the adorers nowadays. The perseverance, the dedication, and the passion they feel for the divinity and for the church end up being the main reason for their existence, where the care becomes a fundamental part of their existence, as a woman and as a religious.

KEY WORDS: Closure; Nuns; Femininity; Care Work; Women.