115: Bettina Schmidt

Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Professor Bettina Schmidt, Professor in Study of Religions and Anthropology of Religion at University of Wales Trinity Saint David and President of the British Association for the Study of Religion. Bettina is also Director of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre in Lampeter.

Bettina is currently looking in her research at questions of spirituality, health and wellbeing and one of her areas of specialism is spirit possession and trance in Brazil and on vernacular forms of religion, such as voodoo, in the Caribbean.

Originally from a working class background in Germany, where her father was a coal miner, Bettina reflects on how her mother made sure she and her sisters had a good education. Anthropology was a way for Bettina to see the world, and Bettina talks about the role that religion played in terms of identity in her mother’s life. Indeed, for Bettina, religious identity is more important in some respects than the content of religion.

We learn what her parents thought about her career and about the role that the patron saint Barbara played, including in Bettina’s PhD viva. Bettina also discusses musical interests, including Abba and Grease and civil rights songs. She saw Joan Baez perform in Cardiff shortly before lockdown and she also remembers being impressed by Joe Cocker.

We learn how Bettina entered academia and talk about whether fieldwork can still take place due to lockdown. Bettina explains that she keeps a diary of each of her field trips and we discover why Brazil is the only place to which she has returned. Indeed, she joined Facebook because of the people in Brazil and we learn how she sent her books to the leaders of the community who helped her.

We find out about the university teachers who inspired Bettina and why she is inspired more by ideas than people.

She talks about her father’s experience of being harassed for being a German after the War and she discusses the role of nostalgia in the context of a past that was destroyed by political events. Bettina also reflects on how Brexit has been tough on Europeans living in the UK, and we talk about the concepts of cultural memory and of a Utopian Africa.

Then, at the end of the interview, we learn that Bettina enjoys reading Agatha Christie crime novels and we talk about the nostalgic idea of a Britain that never existed vis-à-vis the stories of Enid Blyton and how anthropology comprises a subjective reflection of the world.

Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Bettina Schmidt and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.