Luis Muñoz Villalón (PhD, University of Seville 2023), graduated in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Seville (2016), later pursuing a master's degree in Anthropological Research at UNED (2017) . His first ethnographic work focused on the issue of mourning and communication of orphan mothers with their deceased children, with special interest in the Catholic perspective. On that question, the publication in the journal Disparidades, under the title ‘“Where do they think they go?”: An ethnography of mothers with deceased children on communication after death’ (2020) stands out.

He has concluded his doctoral thesis in October 2023, where he has practised a process of ethnographic experimentation during which he tries to reflect on the main topics of interest in his career: methodologies for the study of the religious-spiritual phenomenon, and the autoethnographic experience as an exploratory path in the embodied anthropologies of religion. The ethnographic ‘places’ have been the so-called alternative or subjective spiritualities, giving a turn in his latest works towards pluralities within Catholicism, addressing the trajectories and itineraries of conversion of spiritual seekers in Catholic practices such as the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.

Three publications stand out about this last research, still in progress: 1) ‘Drift as methodological (pre)disposition. Ethnographic immersion and ontological engagement in a catholic spiritual practice’, in the journal Etnográfica (2023, portugal), 2) ‘Spiritual Seekers and Mysticism: Autoethnographic Reflections from a “Post-Christian” Catholic Practice’ (2024, Editorial Tirant lo Blanch), and 3) ‘Pilgrims and seekers in the new conversion itineraries: An autoethnographic approach’ (Editorial Flacso, in press).

His main research interests are: experimental methodologies in the study of the religious-spiritual phenomenon, contemporary spirituality and post-secular society – with special interest in the dialogues between Catholicism and the new spiritual practices –, autoethnography, and the contributions coming from the ontological turn, together with an interest in overflowing the limits of possible anthropologies (paranthropology, transpersonal anthropology, etc.).