Research

Prof. Murphy’s first ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in Jamaica in 1972 as a National Institute of Mental Health Trainee. It focused on the relationship between national politics and the success or failure of agricultural cooperatives. The following year he conducted a study of the origin and development of a Charismatic Renewal community in a Roman Catholic Church located in Southern California. This research centered around the unobtrusive orchestration of the initial participation of initiates in a central ritual of Catholic Pentecostalism, the Prayer Meeting. In 1975-76, Murphy pursued dissertation research in Seville, Spain. The focus there was on the politics of the nuclear family. Fieldwork was based in a working class neighborhood, Barrio Macarena, in the central city. In the early 1980s Murphy teamed with Carlos Solis- Magaña to pursue a brief study in coastal Yucatán, Mexico on relationships of rivalry and co-operation between fishing and agricultural villages.

Since 1984 Prof. Murphy has been studying Andalusian Marianism with a field research emphasis on the pilgrimage to La Virgen del Rocio (The Virgin of the Dew), a statue of the Virgin Mary whose shrine is located at the edge of the marshlands of the Guadalquivir River. Much of this work has been done in collaboration with Dr. Juan Carlos González Faraco of the Universidad de Huelva. They have also investigated the round-up and drive of horses from the marshes of Doñana National Park to the Andalusian town of Almonte. In addition to its continuing importance as a venerable local cultural practice, the annual round-up of marsh mares constitutes one of he last remnants of the Spanish equestrian and livestock cultural complex that directly inspired the free-range ranching traditions of the gaucho, the vaquero, and the cowboy of the Western Hemisphere.

Currently, in collaboration with Dr. González Faraco, Murphy continues to examine how a complex of ritual events adjusts to a massive increase in the scale of participation. The focus of this work on the Romería del Rocío (the Pilgrimage to the Virgin of the Dew) centers on how one of Spain’s most important, and successful, examples of vernacular Catholicism has adapted to an enormous extension of its “territory of grace” to include all of Andalusia, much of Spain, and beyond to other countries, such as Argentina, Belgium and the United States. A recent specific topic of investigation has been an analysis of the travel literature produced by foreign observers of La Romería del Rocío from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries.

Photos from the field

Photos from “Marsh Mares” Research

Inside the Department and Out