DISSERTATION PROPOSAL DEFENSE ANNOUNCEMENT

FOR THE DEGREE OF PHD IN BUSINESS

PhD Student: Zhe (Kitty) Li

Title: An Ethnographic Study of Consumption of Spirituality and Spiritual Wellness in the US

Date & Time: Friday, May 8^th, 2026, 1:00pm – 3:00 pm

Location: Smith 122 or via remote connection

Remote Connection:  https://bentley.zoom.us/j/96465389915

Dissertation Committee Co-Chairs: Nada I. Nasr, Associate Professor of Marketing, Bentley University; Anne Rawls, Professor of Sociology, Bentley University.

Committee Members: Lan Xia, Professor of Marketing, Bentley University; Clemens Eisenmann, Postdoctoral Researcher in Sociology at the University of Konstanz and at Siegen University.

ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines how feelings of “well-being” and “belonging” are created in the consumption setting of spiritual retreats in the US. Spiritual retreat centers not only promise participants spiritual beliefs and practices but also offer them a form of therapy that may help alleviate sociocultural dilemmas such as social discrimination, social isolation, and social anxiety (Higgins and Hamilton, 2019). Consumption of such spiritual offerings is rising in the US and globally, making it an important phenomenon to be studied. This dissertation will serve as an exploratory study to investigate this spiritual consumption experience, what drives consumers to this consumption, and, more importantly, whether and how such experiences deliver the promised belonging and well-being in practice.

To explore these questions, this study uses participatory ethnography to examine how collective practices shape consumer experiences at spiritual retreats. In addition, Durkheim’s concept of shared “constitutive practices” and their ability to create feelings of social solidarity and spirituality help to explain how shared rituals and spiritual practices can function to create feelings of spiritual wellness and belonging within a social setting (Durkheim, 1912). The research consists of a participant observation ethnographic study conducted at two primary and five secondary sites in the United States. The two primary sites are retreat and meditation centers that offer both spiritual retreats and training in spiritual practices. The five secondary sites are like the primary sites (except for one that has more limited offerings). To conduct the research, I needed to be accepted as a resident so that I could conduct participant observation ethnographic research. I was only accepted as a resident at two places, so they became my primary sites: one yoga ashram (RAV Yoga Ashram) and one Zen monastery (MAT Monastery). A total of 70 24-hour days was spent as a full participant in all activities at these two sites. Many short visits (1-5 days) were made to the five remaining sites for approximately 20 24-hour days as a retreat participant. In total, approximately 90 24-hour days were spent conducting participant observation across all locations.

Data collection consisted of detailed field notes recorded on-site during breaks or at the end of each day in the dormitory, supplemented by self-reflections written after completing some retreat experiences. Printed material made available by the various centers was also collected. Field notes documented the physical environment and retreat settings, the social practices involved in organized retreat rituals, interpersonal interactions, participants' interactions with objects and spaces, and my own responses and reflections. A particular focus of the field notes on the collective practices and rituals was to document the formal and informal rules governing retreat life, along with instances of adherence to or transgression of these rules. It is the central premise of the research that it is the rules and how they are followed that either create or fail to create the promised feelings of belonging and well-being. Participant observation as a resident allowed me to capture the details of both the rules and the expectations involved in retreat life and the ways participants navigated, adapted to, or resisted those expectations.

Central to this study is Durkheim's insight that it is constitutive practices, rather than beliefs alone, that create shared meaning and social order (Durkheim, 1912). Religious rituals, in his framework, are never just expressive — they are generative, producing the moral codes and emotional bonds that enable collective life. Importantly, Durkheim (1912) identified the “collective effervescence” as the emotional result of shared ritual participation: that heightened sense of awe, energy, and connection to something larger than oneself that can emerge when individuals gather and practice together. When failure to achieve a sense of belonging becomes widespread, a state often called anomie can occur. Anomie is a state of breakdown or weakening of the shared rules, values, and moral guidance that normally regulate social life with the result that people can feel rootless, disoriented, or empty, leading to various forms of social and psychological distress. In more traditional societies, the rules and practices are often based on shared beliefs that tend to erode in the diverse contexts of modernity. In diverse modern societies, shared constitutive practices that can achieve feelings of mutuality can still work under many conditions.

Thus, if spiritual retreats can build community and foster a sense of belonging while also improving individuals’ spiritual well-being, they can be appealing both to consumers and to society as a whole. This study proposes that a spiritual retreat is a socially organized social setting designed to create feelings of belonging and well-being through rituals and other collective practices. It suggests that spiritual retreat centers are, in effect, trying to create collective effervescence through structured collective practices. These collective practices are intended to amplify commonalities among participants and reduce perceived differences, making it easier for individuals to feel they are part of the group. However, the rigidity of the collective practices that are involved in creating these collective feelings can make some people uncomfortable, leading them to leave the retreat. Field notes include many instances when participants reported complaints, where this rigidity was the focus. Thus, the study also considers the conditions under which a spiritual retreat fails to generate a sense of belonging and well-being, whether the rigidity of the practices is central to this failure, and whether more accurate marketing could alleviate this problem.

This dissertation will contribute to understanding how the retreat process can fail. Collective rituals may not produce effervescence uniformly; participants might resist the moral codes or rituals being enacted, and the commercial setting of the retreat may compromise the authenticity needed for genuine collective bonding. This study, therefore, aims to explore not only how the feeling of belonging and well-being can be achieved through collective practices at retreat centers but also the circumstances under which they break down.

In doing so, this research will make contributions to both consumer research and theoretical understanding: empirically, it provides insight into a rapidly growing sector of the wellness economy whose experiential aspects remain underexplored in marketing research; theoretically, it extends Durkheimian analysis into the context of modern spiritual consumer experiences, testing whether and how “mechanical-style solidarity” (solidarity based on sameness) can be reconstructed within a diverse late-modern, commercially mediated setting. Ultimately, this study aims to illuminate both the promise and the limits of collective spiritual practice as a response to contemporary feelings of anomie.