Byron Arthur Clark is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at UBC. His work uses semiotic analysis to understand and describe symbolic communication at Neo-Pagan sacred places, particularly in the village of Glastonbury in England. Byron is originally from Cape Town, South Africa. He has a BA Honours cum Laude in Philosophy from Stellenbosch University (completed on exchange at the University of Amsterdam) and was awarded a Chevening Scholarship to do an MSc in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Byron has also worked as an intellectual property specialist in the publishing industry (for Penguin Random House and Macmillan) and has had an extensive theatre and musical career.
Q: What is the title of your research project?
A: The title of PhD dissertation is “Sacred Place, Numinous Signs: The Semiotics of Glastonbury’s Pilgrimage Sites”
Q: What was the main focus of your research project during your time as fellow in the Centre?
A: As often happens in research I ended up going down a surprising research rabbit hole. I thought I had some sense of one particular problem but ended up learning a whole lot more than I’d bargained for. I looked intensively at the problem of Celtic identity and debates around the application of the ethnic identifier “Celtic” to people in Britian in antiquity, especially just prior to the Roman invasion. A position which has now come to be known as “Celtoscepticism” has challenged whether or not it is appropriate to use the word “Celtic” to describe the Ancient Britons (especially following the work of John Collis). This debate is relevant to my work at my field site in Glastonbury since many of the Contemporary Pagans practising there believe themselves to be reviving the religion of the Ancient Celts, and directly connect this practice to the ancient inhabitants of the area, a tribe known as the Durotriges. If the Celtosceptic scholars were right, however, this may challenge much of the intellectual work that has gone into reconstructionist religion, especially where it entails comparisons with the religion of Ancient Celtic cultures on the European continent.
Ultimately, however, I found major issues with the argument of the Celtosceptic scholars, who were using outdated ideas about ethnicity in their understanding of what makes a particular people “Celtic” or not. They discounted language (and Ancient Britons indisputably spoke a Celtic language) as a major factor in establishing and transmitting an identifiable cultural unit, sometimes in favour of actual biological descent, a position totally at odds with how social anthropologists now view ethnicity as a constructed and fluid phenomenon. So long as we are aware that the term “Celtic” is a construct which we use to group people with observably similar cultural factors, and that the boundaries of this construct are subject to change and look different from different perspectives and in different time periods, it remains a useful concept. The Ancient Britons remain an exemplar of this broader culture, as do some of the contemporary religious cultures which I study, irrespective of the so-called “descent” of their members.
Q: What drew you to this research project?
A: I had a housemate when I was living in Johannesburg in South Africa who first introduced me to Wicca and Contemporary Pagan Witchcraft. He leant me a book called A Witches Guide to Life, by Kala Trobe. I was sceptical at first, but I learnt a lot about this style of spiritual practice from Kala’s work, especially about divination practices like the Tarot. Around this time, I left for England to do my Masters in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. I was still interested in learning more about Paganism and so attended what is called a pubmoot of Pagans in Oxford. A pubmoot is an informal conversational group of pagans that typically meets in the local pub. There I met a group of very knowledgeable Pagans, one of whom was friends with Kala Trobe, the author of that book my housemate had lent me, and who lived in Glastonbury. I travelled to Glastonbury to interview her for my Masters thesis, which was about Pagan textual practice and publishing. This led to my discovery of Glastonbury as a centre of Contemporary Pagan culture and knowledge production, which is what eventually led to this project.
Q: How did the UBC Centre for European Studies support your research project?
A: I found one of the major benefits for me was having the office space on campus during this period, when I am not teaching and focused very much on research and writing. This project has always involved lugging a lot of heavy books around, so I found it practically very useful to have somewhere to keep library books temporarily, and to work during the day when I was on campus. I also benefited from the collegial atmosphere and contact and conversations with the other student fellows.
Q: What are your plans for after the fellowship and after your time at UBC?
A: My focus right now is on finishing my PhD dissertation. After my PhD I hope to turn this work into a publishable book. I am also currently working on a novel, which I hope to finish at around the same time. My current goal is to be a writer, of fiction and academic work in equal measure. So after my PhD I plan to move to London, and try to make it as a writer, while keeping one foot in the academic world through occasional teaching contracts. I do have some plans for potential postdoctoral research, but this is dependent on finding an appropriate funding source.
Byron Arthur Clark was a 2024 CES Graduate Research Fellow. This interview was conducted by CES Project Assistant Braden Russell.