Jumpers, umbrellas and plastic bags

This 18-month, British Academy-funded project is run by Dr Ruth Slatter and has provided important insights into the shifting role of women within the Methodist Church since 1945.

By exploring the role of material culture in British Methodist women’s everyday engagements in faith and religious practice over the past 75 years, the research has uncovered three key findings.

• The research has highlighted how women have used material things to construct ‘female spaces’ of worship, fellowship and mission, with or without the support of the central Methodist Church.
• It has also emphasised how women have made and used material things to make important, but largely overlooked contributions, to the spiritual and practical needs of communities such as Black Africans in apartheid South Africa and Dalit women in India.
• It has demonstrated how intergenerational networks of female friendship are essential to the effective organisation of Methodist communities – and that these networks are often facilitated by the exchange of material things.