Practices of Belonging in Contemporary European Polytheisms: Place, Non-Human Agency, and Contested Categories

Drawing on comparative ethnographic research among contemporary polytheist communities in Greece and Italy, this paper examines belonging as a situated practice enacted through ritual spaces, relationships with deities, and engagements with landscapes understood as more-than-human actors. It explores how practitioners cultivate attachment, legitimacy, and continuity through the occupation and creation of ritual sites, while also addressing internal tensions and debates over recognition, categorization, and authority. By analyzing disputes surrounding academic labels such as “neopaganism” and practitioners’ preferred terminologies, the paper re ects on how belonging is produced, contested, and constrained within marginalized spiritual movements and scholarly discourse.