Slow travel

I sat myself down in the train and realised that it is now exactly 10 years since this journey began.

In November 2015, I was invited to a conference on the theme of Women and Religion in Lisbon. As I had committed myself to slow travel, I decided to make the journey by train, just like I had done in 1999 when I moved to live in Portugal for a year. However, on my way back, something unexpected happened!
I took the train to Madrid instead of Paris, and when I woke up in the morning, I learnt that there had been an incident in Paris, so trains were cancelled, and travel would have been very restricted on that route.

Instead, I went to the Prada museum and got a first inkling about how important it would be for my research on dance in the Christian traditions of the Latin West to investigate artworks in the medieval period and also to do on-site visits to the places where we know that there are historical records of dancing. The following year I travelled all across Europe in my medieval dress to visit the sites of importance for my study. In my doctoral thesis, I did not write much about this aspect of my methodolog,y but the practice itself stuck with me.

During the past years, I have learnt so many valuable lessons about this kind of research methods, particularly from Eduardo Abrantes, and now it is time to put it to the test. The Praxis project has a theme where knowledge migrates between the past and the present, and for the coming month, I will be migrating from the north to the south, from monasteries to universities and between texts and embodied practices, weaving a liturgy of travel in the footsteps of the first wave of liberation theology.

I look forward to all the unexpected encounters!
(Photos are a blast from the past)