Children's drawings of gods: an interdisciplinary approach

24th and 25th May 2018
University of Lausanne, Switzerland

The concept of god, at least in some religious traditions, is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp, and presupposes a long evolution in an individual. The interdisciplinary project "Drawings of gods: A multicultural and interdisciplinary approach to children's representations of supernatural agents" aims to demonstrate the richness of drawing as a method for studying representations of god in children and thus contribute to our understanding of this concept, its origins and its development. In this perspective, drawings from a variety of cultural and religious traditions (Switzerland, Japan, Russia, Iran, Brazil, Netherlands and so on) were collected and analysed by the project team and their partners from different countries.

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together these researchers with the objective on one side of sharing the results of their research, and on the other side critically examining the contributions and limitations of this methodology, which deals with research conducted with children. It is also an opportunity to launch a discussion on new research avenues to study this material and especially to reflect on the new empirical and theoretical perspectives within the broader framework of the study of this concept.