Becoming Clergy: How Agency and Identity are Afforded to Novice Professionals Through Traditional and Ritual Practices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7577/pp.6426Keywords:
Clergy, Novice professionals, Newly educated, Pastoral practice, Passivity, Practice theory, Professional agency, Professional identityAbstract
The article contributes to the growing research interest in professional agency and identity by examining how novice clergy experience their first years as parish pastors in the Church of Norway. Based on focus groups with newly graduated ministers, analysed with practice-theoretical and socio-cultural perspectives, we identify two modes. The first emerges when pastors enter traditional, well-established practices that lend them authority, clarity of task, and relational traction. The second mode is also afforded by enrolling in a traditional pastoral role but avoids defensiveness by being more improvisational and expressive, expanding the professional role in time and space. We argue that previous contributions (Campbell-Reed & Scharen, Reite) have tended to downplay the importance of ritual, stability and receptiveness. We further discuss (with Heikkilä) the relationship between our theorised modes, the clergy’s linguistic expression of their experiences, and the material and symbolic reality of the practices in which they participate.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Fredrik Saxegaard, Kirsten Donskov Felter, Tone Stangeland Kaufman, Jonas Ideström, Lars Johan Danbolt
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