How does one measure and analyze human alterity and difference in an interconnected and ever-glob... more How does one measure and analyze human alterity and difference in an interconnected and ever-globalizing world? This chapter contextualizes and critically assesses the impact of what has often been dubbed ‘the ontological turn’ within anthropology in order to provide some answers to these questions. Mapping the highly variegated and multiplex terrain covered by this turn, we outline three broad domains of its impact (vistas, materialities and politics). Juxtaposing antagonistic positions, the Introduction provides a context for the book’s exploration of the turn’s empirical and theoretical limits, accomplishments and potential for the discipline.
This chapter discusses how the urban is experienced by a group of religiously minded young people... more This chapter discusses how the urban is experienced by a group of religiously minded young people with different ethnic backgrounds who have been born and educated in Germany, showing how their everyday lives in their urban environment are formed by their participation in a Muslim 'faith community'. The chapter suggests first, how this religious 'faith community' continuously shapes Muslim youth's religious identifications, and secondly, how this youth organisation connects religious knowledge, consumption and ideas from the transnational, national and local levels. It also focuses the female participants of this organisation. In the weekly meetings the young women read together from the Koran in Arabic, followed by a German translation, and present Powerpoint presentations of the contemporary value of different hadith to their own lives in Germany. Keywords:Berlin; faith community; German; Muslim; National; religious youth organisation; transnational powers
Ethnologia Scandinavica. A Journal for Nordic Ethnology, 2020
”Is it mandatory to celebrate children’s birthdays?” A mother of five with a Somali background as... more ”Is it mandatory to celebrate children’s birthdays?” A mother of five with a Somali background asked this question in a parenting class she attended with other parents from East Africa. The mother explained that she experienced a very specific demands from both the kindergarten and school concerning birthdays: that her children should have a celebration. “Why are children with a migration background not attending birthday parties in our children’s classes at school?” A white middle-class mother asked this rhetorically, partly to herself and partly to others, while discussing how to make a more inclusive school environment in a parents’ meeting at a school. During our fieldwork with parents of different class and ethnic background in a diversified area in Bergen, the second largest city in Norway, we noticed that questions about birthday parties were of high concern among both professionals working with children and many differently situated parents. Some parents in our study discussed how to perform it, others whether to do so at all, and many reflected upon expectations concerning guests, gifts and hosts
How does one measure and analyze human alterity and difference in an interconnected and ever-glob... more How does one measure and analyze human alterity and difference in an interconnected and ever-globalizing world? This chapter contextualizes and critically assesses the impact of what has often been dubbed ‘the ontological turn’ within anthropology in order to provide some answers to these questions. Mapping the highly variegated and multiplex terrain covered by this turn, we outline three broad domains of its impact (vistas, materialities and politics). Juxtaposing antagonistic positions, the Introduction provides a context for the book’s exploration of the turn’s empirical and theoretical limits, accomplishments and potential for the discipline.
This chapter discusses how the urban is experienced by a group of religiously minded young people... more This chapter discusses how the urban is experienced by a group of religiously minded young people with different ethnic backgrounds who have been born and educated in Germany, showing how their everyday lives in their urban environment are formed by their participation in a Muslim 'faith community'. The chapter suggests first, how this religious 'faith community' continuously shapes Muslim youth's religious identifications, and secondly, how this youth organisation connects religious knowledge, consumption and ideas from the transnational, national and local levels. It also focuses the female participants of this organisation. In the weekly meetings the young women read together from the Koran in Arabic, followed by a German translation, and present Powerpoint presentations of the contemporary value of different hadith to their own lives in Germany. Keywords:Berlin; faith community; German; Muslim; National; religious youth organisation; transnational powers
Ethnologia Scandinavica. A Journal for Nordic Ethnology, 2020
”Is it mandatory to celebrate children’s birthdays?” A mother of five with a Somali background as... more ”Is it mandatory to celebrate children’s birthdays?” A mother of five with a Somali background asked this question in a parenting class she attended with other parents from East Africa. The mother explained that she experienced a very specific demands from both the kindergarten and school concerning birthdays: that her children should have a celebration. “Why are children with a migration background not attending birthday parties in our children’s classes at school?” A white middle-class mother asked this rhetorically, partly to herself and partly to others, while discussing how to make a more inclusive school environment in a parents’ meeting at a school. During our fieldwork with parents of different class and ethnic background in a diversified area in Bergen, the second largest city in Norway, we noticed that questions about birthday parties were of high concern among both professionals working with children and many differently situated parents. Some parents in our study discussed how to perform it, others whether to do so at all, and many reflected upon expectations concerning guests, gifts and hosts
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