Dr Marta Trzebiatowska

Biography

I joined the Department of Sociology in September 2007, having completed my doctorate at Exeter University where I was fortunate enough to be supervised by Professor Grace Davie. My research focuses on religion and  non-religion, and on the relationship between religious and secular discourses and gender politics. More specifically, I am interested in sociologically examining the ways in which religious and secular individuals construct meaningful lives and make sense of their place in the world in a variety of cultural contexts.

Research Overview

I am predominantly interested in the relationship between religion and gender. I have co-written a book with Steve Bruce in which we explore and critique competing explanations of women's greater religiosity.

My second area of research is Catholicism and nonreligion in Poland and in the UK. My most recent project investigated the lived realities of the nonreligious in Poland.

I am also interested in social theory and recently my work has been increasingly informed by existentialism.

In my current work I develop several themes that emerged from my previous research:

• gender and nonreligion (including atheism) in different cultural contexts
• nonreligion and everyday life in Poland 
• the privatisation and intellectualisation of faith among Polish Catholics
• the methodological and ethical aspects of researching religion and non-religion. In particular, I am concerned with the issues of covert versus overt fieldwork, 'uncomfortable' versus 'cosy' research relationships, and the trouble with reflexivity. 

Main research themes:

• sociology of religion and nonreligion

• religion and gender

• religion and sexuality

• religion and migration

• Catholicism in Central and Eastern Europe

• structure and agency

Current Research

My current project (funded by the British Academy) investigates the reality of being nonreligious in a religious society by examining the everyday lives of nones - the unchurched or unaffiliated - in contemporary Poland. Poland’s religiously indifferent and unattached are sociologically interesting because the country’s political history has given the Catholic Church an unusual position of social prestige: an autonomous guarantor of Polish identity confronting a communist state that was often seen as the local agent of an alien power. In this context, nonbelief carries a complex combination of meanings. Polish noneism manifests itself most commonly as an objection to the Catholic Church’s interference in both private and public spheres. This study explores the everyday lives of Polish nones while paying particular attention to public space, national identity, and gender.

https://onlysky.media/mtrzebiatowska/gen-z-poles-drive-secular-growth-in-the-catholic-stronghold-of-europe/

Funding and Grants

British Academy, Going Against the Grain? Nonreligion in Poland. PI, Duration: October 2017 - August 2019

Porticus (formerly Derwent Consultancy Trust), Polish parishioners and Polish priests in the UK and Ireland: Identifying Problems and Possibilities, a co-investigator, with Claire Wallace and Halina Grzymala-Moszczynska, Duration: October 2008 – September 2009