In Argentina, Pentecostalism had a breakthrough in the early 1980s, and today more than 10 per cent of the population are Pentecostals. The revival coincided with a socio-political transformation of Argentinean society. After half a century of dictatorships and Peronism, democracy was restored, and structural changes paved the way for a certain “autonomisation” of politics, law, economy, science and religion. The "new" form of society that developed resembles what in this study is called a Western model, which to a large degree is currently being diffused on a global scale. This work examines the new religious sphere and how Pentecostals relate to society at large, and the political and judicial sphere in particular.

Social systems theory and an idea of communication as constitutive of social spheres, such as religious, political and judicial ones, form the theoretical foundation for the study. Methods that have been used are fieldwork, interviews and analyses of written material. It is concluded that evangelisation and transformation are of major concern to Pentecostals in contemporary Argentina and that this follows a global trend. Evangelisation has always been important to, even a hallmark of, Pentecostalism. What has become as important is the urge for transformation, of the individual, the family and society. This leads to increased socio-political engagement. However, Pentecostals do not have a “fixed” idea of how society should be organised, i.e., they do not yet have a full-fledged political theology, a public theology or what could be called a Pentecostal ideology. This is mainly because they experience a lack of “compatibility” between the Pentecostal and the political communication. Their approaches to socio-political concerns seem to be based on an understanding of certain “values” as the fundamental building block of society.

This paper addresses a design exploration focusing on interactive jewellery and wearable computing that could affect sexual harassment in social contexts in everyday life. Drawing on a design inquiry study that lead to the creation of an interactive and digital necklace named Sunshine, which is a personal alarm connected to an emergency center, this paper focuses on how a piece of digital jewellery can contribute to women’s empowerment in relation to sexual harassment. The functionality of Sunshine is based on a device that will be activated when the user presses a button on the necklace and an alert with the location of the user will be sent to an alarm center. The users press the button when in danger or exposed to violence and/or abuse. This study so forth addresses a design exploration of a piece of jewellery that can be seen as a symbol for women’s safety, unity and equality. The combination of digital technology and fashion design demonstrate that people can be brought together and especially be empowering in social contexts where sexual harassment might be a part of women’s everyday life.

In this article, we explore the role of film in educational settings and argue that testimony and narrative are dependent upon each other for developing ethical judgments. We use the film 12 Angry Men to enhance our thesis that the emotional response that sometimes is intended in using film as testimonies in classrooms requires a specific listening; a listening that puts pupils at risk when they relate testimonies to their own life narratives. The article raises the importance of listening in training narrative ethos in relation to violence witnessed in film. The article contributes by enhancing an understanding of a relational dimension to testimony and narrative, which, in an Arendtian sense, is also put forward as a political relation.

The article builds on ethnographic fieldwork within the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) milieu of Istanbul. It is based on material collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with people who at the same time self-identify as practicing Muslims and have romantic and sexual relations with people of their own sex. The protagonist of the article is a pious Muslim woman who can be placed in the category of LGBTQ Muslims who do not seek coherence and are not involved in a reinterpretation of their Islamic tradition. The article explores the complex ways in which this woman handles the potential conflicts between her sex life and her religious beliefs, and points specifically to the way she supports herself on the firm belief that Allah loves and protects her.

This thesis aims at contributing to a critical discussion on the supposedly far-reaching secularity of Sweden on the one hand, and on the incongruence and inconsistency of lived religion on the other. At the center are people referred to as semi-secular Swedes – a group that is often neglected in the study of religion. These people do not go to church or get involved in any other alternative organized spiritual activities, neither are they actively opposed to religion or entirely indifferent to it. Most of them describe the ways they are – or are not – religious as in line with the majority patterns in Swedish society.

The study is qualitative in method and the material has been gathered through interviews and a questionnaire. It offers a close reading of 28 semi-secular Swedes’ ways of talking about and relating to religion, particularly in reference to their everyday lives and their own experiences, and it analyzes the material with a focus on incongruences.

By exploring how the term religion is employed vernacularly by the respondents, the study pinpoints one particular feature in the material, namely simultaneity. The concept of simultaneity is descriptive and puts emphasis on a ‘both and’ approach in (1) the way the respondents ascribe meaning to the term religion, (2) how they talk about themselves in relation to different religious designations, and (3) how they interpret experiences that they single out as ‘out-of-the-ordinary’. These simultaneities are explained and theorized through analyses focusing on intersubjective and discursive processes.

In relation to theorizing on religion and religious people this study offers empirical material that nuance a dichotomous understanding of ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’. In relation to methodology it is argued that the salience of simultaneity in the material shows that when patterns of religiosity among semi-secular Swedes are studied there is a need to be attentive to expressions of complexity, contradiction and incongruity.

The purpose of this research is to analyze how women are being portrayed through a gender perspective in three different textbooks. The purpose also includes a comparison between existing research in this field and this specific research to analyze whether there are any inequities between one another. The results that will be presented will answers the following issues:

1. In what way are women being portrayed in text?

2. In what way are women being portrayed through image?

3. Are there any patterns between these four textbooks that can be distinguished, and if so, what are they?

The methods that had been used to complete this study involved a quantitative and qualitative study. In addition, an image analysis has also been used to further stretch and resolve the issues. The result shows that women are portrayed as subordinate and less important in the textbooks that are being used in schools today, both in text and image. Yet some newer and modern textbooks do not favor women through a gender perspective.

Den här uppsatsen grundas på intervjuer med nio olika muslimer som praktiserar olika i frågan om matregler. Uppsatsens syfte är öka att förståelsen för de skillnader som finns vad gäller hur muslimer förhåller sig till sin religions matregler. Fokus har legat på alkohol- och grisförbudet.

Resultatet har analyserats utifrån Anthony Giddens socialisationsteori samt diskuterats i förhållande till tidigare islamforskares förklaringar till dessa förbud. Resultatet visar att informanterna förhåller sig olika till alkohol och grisförbudet och att det framförallt beror på huruvida de har socialiserats in i att inte äta eller dricka de livsmedel, som uppsatsen behandlar, under sin barndom.

Finns det någon mening med att kalla sig "demokrat" i en samtid där praktiskt taget alla kallar sig demokrater? Kan ett begrepp som tycks kunna betyda både allt och inget fortfarande ha ett meningsfullt politiskt innehåll? I föreliggande bok åtar sig några av vår tids mest namnkunniga politiska teoretiker att besvara denna provokativa fråga. Svaren de presenterar formuleras utifrån skilda utgångspunkter och leder i flera fall till helt olika slutsatser. Samtidigt förenas de alla av ett gemensamt grundantagande: "demokrati" kan inte vara namnet på en redan förverkligad samhällsmodell eller en metod för att med jämna mellanrum utse politiska ledare. Tvärtom fortsätter demokratibegreppet att vara föremål för kamp och fungera som kärna åt politikens mest centrala frågor.

Den här vetenskapliga essän syftar till att undersöka några förskollärare, barnskötare och rektorers erfarenheter av den kommunala förskoleorganisationen i Stockholm utifrån en tanke om att dagens förskoleorganisation har invaderats av främmande styrsystem från managementvärlden och bilproduktionen, vilket bidrar till vad som här kallas för ”organisatorisk invasion” och ökade ”organisatoriska avstånd”. Utgångspunkten för essän är gestaltade erfarenheter från ett mångårigt arbete som förskollärare i den kommunala förskolan i Stockholm, vilka lett fram till essäns frågor som handlar om vilka erfarenheter, såväl kroppsliga som andra, några barnskötare, förskollärare och rektorer i Stockholm stad har av sin arbetssituation, men även hur de kopplar dem till organisationen de arbetar inom. Jag frågar mig också hur erfarenheterna påverkar deltagarnas möjligheter till att tänka om och utföra sitt arbete. Slutligen undersöker essän eventuella motståndsstrategier i relation till organisatoriska avstånd och organisatorisk invasion. Material till de empiriska inslagen insamlas genom reflekterande intervjusamtal med såväl förskollärare som barnskötare och rektorer och bearbetas genom skrivande av så kallad ”pratpoesi”. Materialet analyseras utifrån ett kroppsfenomenologiskt och ett organisationskritiskt perspektiv och med hjälp av Hannah Arendts teorier om olika former av mänsklig aktivitet. Essän visar att en mängd erfarenheter görs och skapas i relation till organisationen, vilka väcker frågor om ansvar, tänkande och görande i förskolan. Essän visar även hur New Public Management kan förstås som en invasiv främmande art som invaderat den kommunala förskolan och de som bebor den, vilket bland annat erfars av pedagogerna som en kroppslig splittring, här kallad ”hjärtats stress” respektive ”hjärnans stress” och en uppdelning mellan ”de som tänker” och ”de som gör”. Essän skriver slutligen fram motståndsstrategier utifrån det insamlade materialet, samt presenterar möjligheter kring att minska organisatoriska avstånd med hjälp av den praktiska kunskapens teori. 

Hur uppfattar Temple of Set sin relation till den fornegyptiska religionen och vilka aspekter anser de att deras moderna ockultism har gemensamt med eller har utvecklats från denna?

The following essay aims to investigate Martin Heidegger’s notion of Dasein in Being and Time by taking into account the therein neglected existential-ontological aspect of birth. The point of departure is the concept of grundsein, i.e. Dasein being handed over itself as itself, groundlessly, with the remaining task of becoming its own basis from which it is able to properly project itself. In Being and Time this is made possible by actively grasping and appropriating ones ’ownmost possibility’ of being-towards-death. The present investigation however, raises the question whether or not Daseins other fundamental limit of being, namely birth, which in Being and Time is continuously disregarded, can provide a different understanding of grundsein; complementing the existing analysis by giving Dasein a more thorough framing. As for the proposed supplementing theory, the essay first turns to the concept of natality as it is developed in Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition. Thereafter it traces the notion of birth as it unfolds in the work Relating Narratives by the contemporary Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero, who thematically remains close to Arendt, although not without some crucial differences. With that in mind, the essay finally returns to Heidegger for a critical exploration of the theories opposed. 

The present investigation aims to show that these theories of birth does in fact offer insights that are foreign to, albeit not irreconcilable with, the framework of Being and Time. Especially regarding that of mitsein, coexistence, which nonetheless also have inevitable consequences for the question of grundsein. By taking birth into consideration existentially, this essay seeks to shed light on what can be considered fundamentally relational aspects of Dasein as it is shown to be constitutively in-front-of, and a being-from-others. Furthermore there is shown to be an aspect of passive reception to Dasein, more specifically the non-negotiable gift of existence at all which unceasingly remains out of it’s reach; that is, arguably, somewhat overlooked in Being and Time (even though the concepts of thrownness and historicity may indicate such a condition). Lastly the author wishes to embed the existential-ontological matter of birth in the pressing planetary crisis of our time, asserting that the question of (human) birth and existence no longer can afford to ignore these biological-ecological aspects that are undeniably of due importance for the question at hand.

Utgångspunkten för det treåriga projektet The Phenomenology of Suffering in Medicine: Explorations in the Baltic Sea Region är den centrala roll lidan­de intar i medicinsk praxis, och därmed också i den medicinska etiken. Den teoretiska grunden för projektet är den breda tradition inom huma­nistisk reflektion och forskning under 1900-talet som innefattar fenome­no­logi, hermeneutik och narrativitet.

I projektets empiriska del har fem medicinska fakulteter runt Östersjön valts ut, delvis beroende på etablerade kontakter, delvis för att på dessa orter pågår intressant undervisning och forskning inom ovan beskrivna fält. Med hjälp av kontaktpersoner på respektive orter har sedan studiebesök genomförts, med informella samtal och formella inter­vjuer. Intervjuerna har analyserats för teman som belyser forsknings­projektets grundläggande fråga om hur fenomenet lidande upp­märk­sam­mas, tolkas och hanteras inom dels medicinsk undervisning och i någon mån även i forskning inom medicinsk humaniora på respektive orter.

The purpose of this study is to identify and problematize how Islam is portrayed in the popular culture television series SKAM. This essay will show the analysis of images of Islam and Muslims in SKAM and how the process of us-and-them society are shaped, and the study hopes to illustrate popular culture as a source of information for religion. To fulfill the purpose and questions of the essay, this study will use a postcolonial theory and a semiotic method.

The questions at issue:

-       How are Islam and Muslims portrayed in season 4 of SKAM?

-       How can the images of Islam and Muslims that appear in the Tv series SKAM be understood and analyzed through a postcolonial theory? 

The methods used in this essay were Roland Barthes methods of semiotics which is based on analyzing images, advertising, film, or other communicative situations that can be perceived or create meaning through the signs of spoken and written language. These signs can be analyzed on two levels which are known as connotations and denotations. The theory used in this essay was postcolonialism. Postcolonial theory is the study of how the power over different groups is maintained by creating a hierarchical order and separation through social and cultural notions. These social and cultural notions create stereotypes and designations that survive today e.g., laziness, violence, greed, and primitivism. This essay is analyzed using postcolonial theories such as Edward Said´s Orientalism, which is founded in the idea that a non-western culture i.e., the Orient is pushed aside and portrayed as stereotypical, alien, different, or inferior due to prejudices presented in society.

The analysis of this essay shows, with the help of the theoretical perspective, that the question of whether "SKAM contributes or counteracts to the othering of Muslims in Nordic society?" does create a separation between the Nordic us and the Muslim them in society. This leads to the othering of Muslims in society. 

Sammanfattning

Den här vetenskapliga essän handlar om arbetsterapeutens arbete med neurologisk rehabilitering. Jag gestaltar ett möte med en patient som har drabbats av en stroke och beskriver hur anhöriga påverkar rehabiliteringsprocessen. Problem uppstår när jag inte har lyckats skapa en god relation och samarbete med den anhöriga. Jag funderar över begreppet rehabilitering, kring krisbearbetning och vad det kan innebära att drabbas av en hjärnskada och relaterar det till ett existentiellt och ett relationellt perspektiv. Jag reflekterar över ansvarsfördelningen i vården och hur den fördelas mellan patient, anhörig och arbetsterapeuten i vårdmötet. Mina tankar och reflektioner från mötet med patienten och anhöriga utforskar jag med hjälp av filosofer och andra författare.

Min slutsats är att anhöriga spelar en stor roll för att rehabiliteringen ska lyckas och deras behov av stöd behöver beaktas i större utsträckning. Jag behöver skapa förtroendefulla relationer och ha en dialog med patienten och anhöriga för att utveckla ett bra samarbete. Patienten och arbetsterapeuten har ett delat ansvar över rehabiliteringen och det stöd som anhöriga ger är viktigt för att främja tillfrisknandet.

The aim of this essay is to discuss the meaning of the human and its possible overcoming in Friedrich Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the same, with Martin Heidegger’s readings of Nietzsche as point of departure.

According to Heidegger, Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the same represents the end of occidental metaphysical thinking. The thought concludes a thinking of being as the presence of beings, where the original question of being was never developed out of its own ground.

But at the heart of this interpretation, often considered “violent”, lies the question of whether man is able to think being out of his finitude. This is the question I will unfold, through a reading of Nietzsche’s thought of the eternal recurrence of the same, as it is presented in his Thus spoke Zarathustra, as an attempt to think beings in their being beyond a “humanization” of them, expressed in transcendental aims, purposes and categories. This attempt, I argue, is essentially bound up with a comportment toward the human self as the finite and the corporal. In this sense the human being in its finitude and corporeality is thefocus and the basis for the search for “the overman”.

But this focus on man, as he who can overcome himself, is at the same time a focus that canbe said to lead man away from himself, in not asking the deeper question about what it means to be this human being.

I will furthermore consider the tragic as the theme where this question of the overcoming of the human comes to the fore; the dionysic-tragic reveals both a view of man as the being that is mastered by the abyss that underlies this world, and therefore mastered by his finitude - and as the being who can master this same abyss, in thinking it as one with the human self.

The purpose is not to take a position for or against Heidegger’s reading, but to develop a discussion between Heidegger and Nietzsche about the human self as always being both the closed and the open, and about the ways in which human thinking can approach this.

The main objective of this research was to examine description of Islam in two different schoolbooks about religion. The rapport starts with an introduction of the subject and discusses the background of the topic. After the presentation, aims, and the questions I present my methods and material used in this research. Following the method and material is earlier research where I mention some of the previous rapports and results of researchers within the discourse. The theory used to investigate the text is postcolonial and the orientalism theory presented by Edward Said.

The intention of the research was to answer if the books representation contributed to an oriental description of Islam and Muslims and to see how the text and pictures where used and structured. Similar researches have been presented earlier but this rapport handles a completely new book and a reedited book. The first book is written by Lars-Göran Alm and is called “Religionskunskap A” this book has been published before and is commonly used in schools all around Sweden. The other book is written by Olov Jansson and Linda Karlsson and is called “Religionskunskap A, en mosaik” and had its first release in 2009. The result shows that the book written by Alm represents a more oriental description and the text structure leaves the reader sometimes confused and wanting more. Alm chooses to bring up subjects like Islamism and circumcision of girls but both books mentioned a willingness of Shia Muslims to commit suicidal bombings. Alm left out more spiritual aspects like religious holidays and Sufism. The other book written by Jansson and Karlsson had some tendencies to an oriental description of Islam but not in the same extent as Alm. Jansson and Karlsson also gave a clearer representation of a Swedish context, which made the religion more present and not as distant as Alm. Both books used pictures to complement the text and in most cases in Alms book the pictures were images of places and persons in other continents and countries then Europe and Sweden.

In this essay, an interdisciplinary group of researchers sets out to address the period 1780–1840 in Sweden in a new way, by placing nature at its centre. With the help of ecocritical and transcultural theory, combined with renewed attention to the Swedish fine arts, learned discourses, and practices, we suggest a new approach to these revolutionary decades. The perceived dissonance, the interplay between climatic conditions and cultural template in early modern and modern Sweden, has not been fully addressed in current research, despite the fact that the relationship between humankind and the environment is a central issue in contemporary society and scholarship. Representations of nature situate the nation, they negotiate the relationship between a sensed reality and an ideal, between human and more-than-human beings. We suggest a focus on the unpredictable space created by negotiations of nature in Swedish representations during this crucial period, and, furthermore, on the ways in which this creative space is charged with utopian possibilities in the early Anthropocene. This is the background and the driving force of the planned research project ‘Cool Nature: Utopian Landscapes in Sweden 1780–1840’. 

In this analysis, the aim is to investigate the embodiment and transmission of identity among Swedish female converts to Islam. The examination centers on the position these women occupy in both Swedish society and the Muslim community, and whether they experience a state of “in-betweenness” due to identity conflicts. The focus is also on how Swedish female converts, who are ethnically Swedish, can become perceived as “the Other” within their own society, rooted in concepts of “Swedishness”. Assessing the position of Muslim female converts in Sweden is crucial as they frequently confront prejudiced attitudes and discrimination from both Swedish society and the Muslim community. Simultaneously, they may be considered “traitors” by Swedish society due to their conversion to Islam, resulting in a complex identity conflict where these women find themselves situated between cultures and societies. Hence, finding themselves in a position of “in-betweenness”. This essay endeavors to shed light on the difficulties and opportunities that Swedish Muslim female converts encounter, as well as to examine how they navigate their identity in a Swedish context and how they undergo a transformation from being “part of the majority” to “the Other”.

This contribution traces the emergence, Gleichschaltung, expansion and demise of the Nordische Gesellschaft [Nordic Society] with a special focus on its leading protagonist Alfred Rosenberg. In the beginning of the article, the history of ideas and the organisational foundations of the society are being set as a background. In the main part of the text the Nordische Gesellschaft’s activity during the “Third Reich” and under Rosenberg’s auspices is being analysed. Sources used comprise both archival material as well as the NG’s own publications.

A case study of growers conception of irrigation strategies indicates thatpot plant growers in Scandinavia base their management approaches on experientially based art. The study also indicates that there is a gap between experientially based art and available greenhouse technology. In order to standardize production and produce quality, both the grower’s experience and available technology should be taken into account. In order to achieve this, the present study proposes to arrange reflection on reflection in action with a group of growers by means of the dialogue seminar method. The concept of reflection on reflection in action is novel to horticultural practice. Therefore, we suggest future inter- and multidisciplinary research within this domain.

Abstract: From Harlem to Central Asia: Langston Hughes exploration of Class, Race and Gender under the Soviet Union. This essay explores Langston Hughes journey to Soviet Central Asia, where he aimed to gain insights into the lives of people of “color” under the Soviet Union. Focusing on a book by Hughes this essay analyzes his portrayal of both colonial and post-revolutionary Central Asia.Through the lens of postcolonial theory and an intersectional approach, the study draws connections between African American and Central Asian societies during times of transition. It delves into the intricate dynamics of ethnicity, class, gender, and politics that surface in Hughes depiction of the region. Ultimately, the study seeks to deepen our understanding of the complex intersections between race, gender, ethnicity, and politics in Central Asia during and pre the Soviet era, while highlighting the long-term effects of colonialism on post-slavery African American society and post-colonial Central Asia.

In this paper, I attempt to understand how Merleau-Ponty views the relation between nature and reflection, as well as the meaning behind the terms “human” and “animal” and the relations between them. I approach this by outlining the transition from Merleau-Ponty’s early philosophy (SB, PP) to his late philosophy (N, VI). Roughly understood as the shift from inquiries into the nature of experience to inquiries into the experience of nature. I show that this shift or turn can be understood in terms of a reconsideration of the nature of experience, which opens toward non-human animal reflection; to the simultaneous kinship and estrangement in animal interspecificity.

The paper is divided into three parts: In the first part, oriented around Phenomenology of Perception, I outline the grounding of reflection in the co-natural corporeity of perception. In the second part, I present the implications of Merleau-Ponty’s turn to nature through his reading of Schelling. What becomes visible here is his reversal of method following his turn to nature. Essentially, this reversal of method tempts a reconsideration of reflection: reflection is no longer separated from nature, but a fold within nature itself; a dehiscence of the flesh opening a “mirroring reflexive” within nature itself as nature’s self-reflection, exemplified through the sensing-sensible human body. In the third part, the same reversal of method is considered in relation to animality. I contrast Merleau-Ponty’s account of life and animality in his second course on nature against his views in The Structure of Behavior. Consequently, his account of the grounding of reflection in the corporeity of perception is deepened and his ontology of sensing-sensible is further clarified. In the last sections of the third part, I discuss Merleau-Ponty’s account of the human-animal relation, I then briefly discuss his account of painting as a privileged form of ontological expression, and I finally speculate openly about the alterity of other animals and the possibility of animal philosophies.

Polyamory means having a sexual and/or intimate relationship with more than one person at a time. In this study, we use in-depth interviews with 22 persons in Sweden who have experience of polyamorous or non-monogamous relationships to explore how polyamory can include imagining utopian relationships and spaces. Thematic analysis was done which indicated narratives of politically invested attempts to create communal living or societal change that resists capitalist and heteronormative nuclear-family arrangements as well as stories of everyday events that do not explicitly involve political ambitions. The range of utopian dreams and practices of the non-monogamous participants in our study, we argue, are examples of what Muñoz calls concrete utopias, filled with joy and laden with disappointment in the face of potentiality and reality.

De kallades för Doktorn, Ingolf, Hiller och Orio­n. Bakom täcknamnen dolde sig höga östtyska kyrkofö­reträdare. Alla var involverade i Växjö stifts utbytesprogram med kyrkan i DDR – och samarbetade med den östtyska säkerhetspolisen Stasi. Dess främsta mål var att stoppa stiftet i Småland från att stödja kristna regimkritiker i öst.