Loud internal life in a silent community: Towards lived aspects of religious life in a cloistered, female monastery.

The aim of this article is to present the results of a sociological study on everyday life within a female cloistered monastery. This is a radical form of religious life, highly routinised, distanced from the outside world and conducted in community yet in almost total silence. By elaborating upon the concepts of everyday and lived religion, the scope of our examination complements dominant sociological approaches to the study of this religious phenomenon. By addressing the following research question: 'Do cloistered monasteries de-individualise and totally regulate the life of nuns?', we discuss selected aspects of everyday life in the institution and its contemporary transformations related to, among other things, new communication technologies and new generations of nuns. We show that in this highly institutionalised place nuns remain reflexive individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]