From suzanne.newcombe at open.ac.uk Sun Apr 19 15:58:34 2026 From: suzanne.newcombe at open.ac.uk (Suzanne.Newcombe) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:58:34 +0000 Subject: [YRL] Looking for research assistants for entries on yogic groups Message-ID: Dear colleagues, Inform is looking to pay some scholars as Research Assistants to add entries to the Database of Religious History. We recently received a large John Templeton Foundation grant and some money available to pay for this work (www.newreligiosity.org). We are looking for people who could make entries on contemporary dharmic movements - including contemporary yoga groups and movements. The concept of 'new religiosity' is meant to focus on transformations involving new media and dynamic movement of people globally since the 1970s. This could be centred around a person's network or a centre in a particular city/region. For example it would be great to get some entries on things like - * Sivananda Yoga (in Germany, USA or France for example could all be different entries) * Bihar/Satyananda Yoga (again in particular countries) * Pattabhi Jois’s Ashtanga Yoga * Bikram Choudary * T.K.V. Desikachar’s yoga tradition * B.K.S. Iyengar’s yoga tradition (could be country specific) * Yogi Bhajan and 3HO/Kundalini Yoga * Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living Foundation * Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Orgasniation * Shiva Rea * Seane Corn * Yoga Alliance (USA) We'd like most of the entries to have a close geographical focus in a given legal context/nation state. But there is also room for some transnational entries. We’re also interested in more Bhakti/devotional groups. We estimate that for a group you know reasonably very well, to give 16 hours per entry - kind of 6 hours to gather new resources and 12 hours to do the data input on the poll. But if there's a collection of similar groups and you get used to the poll, this time might decrease as you can mostly repeat the responses but change small details for the nuances of that particular group. You can see the poll here: https://religiondatabase.org/landing/polls/57 For a scholar, research assistant, we're generally paying £350 per entry. I would like to offer contracts in clusters of say, 2-4 groups - ideally in like a time frame of 6-8 weeks. But this can be negotiated. This generally suits someone who's finished a MA or PhD and is in precarious employment... we need to get these done by the end of this year if possible. We're working with Stephen Christopher on this project - he's advertising for individual entries on a bunch of list servs at the moment - but he's using a bit of a different model for commissioning entries than Inform; we are working together and separately at the same time. But he's commissioning member citizen scientists for Canadian Dollars 350. So if there's a member (not-academic) with a kind of academic mind, they could get in touch with Stephen.Christopher at kcl.ac.uk in the first instance - Do you know anyone who might be interested in helping with this? Feel free to pass on my contact details - Suzanne Newcombe the director of Inform - Suzanne.Newcombe at kcl.ac.uk Thanks for forwarding this to anyone you think might be interested in doing an entry (or a few)! Best wishes, Suzanne [Logo Description automatically generated] Suzanne Newcombe, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies Honorary Director of Inform, based at King's College London New publication: [cid:image005.png at 01DC3139.CB6B5C60] w: https://profiles.open.ac.uk/suzanne-newcombe a: The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA Visit our Religion, belief and worldviews hub | OpenLearn - Open University Follow the OU Religious Studies Department on Social Media: [Icon Description automatically generated][Icon Description automatically generated] [Icon Description automatically generated] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 9674 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 3124 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 3999 bytes Desc: image003.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 3664 bytes Desc: image004.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.png Type: image/png Size: 139961 bytes Desc: image005.png URL: