News
RVS 2020: New Call for Application
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The research school Religion Values Society (RVS) is recruting 10-15 new PhD-student members, who are working empirically and contemporary with the fields of religion and/or values and society and are in a PhD-program at one of the RVS member institutions.
The applications are due Dec 13.
More information and the application form here.
Leadership in faith-based organizations. Congratulations to Stephen Sirris!
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RVS member Stephen Sirris defended his thesis "Managers negotiating identities. Hybridizing professionalism and managerialism in faith-based health organizations and in religious organizations” at VID Specialized University, Oslo, Friday 18 October.
For more on the defense and thesis see https://www.vid.no/arrangementer/disputas-for-stephen-sirris/
The thesis explores how reforms as institutional change have an impact within organizations. When managerial roles are developed, questions of identity are raised and the balance of profession and management is re-constructed. The thesis is based on a multiple, embedded case study in a faith-based hospital and in a diocese within the Church of Norway. It theorizes on how managers negotiate identities in the midst of their everyday work.
On education and media influence. We congratulate Audun Toft!
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RVS member Audun Toft defended his thesis "Conflict and Entertainment: Media Influence on Religious Education in Upper Secondary School in Norway" at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society Friday 13 September.
For more on the defence and thesis see here.
His thesis explores media influence on religious education (RE) through a case study of an upper secondary school in Norway. Approaching the question of media presence and use in the RE classroom through a mediatization perspective, the thesis studies how various media impact on the conditions for teaching and learning about religion. In addition to a general focus on media and RE, the thesis has a particular focus on contested issues concerning religion and on RE lessons about Islam. The research for the thesis was conducted as part of the Scandinavian research project “Engaging with Conflict in Mediatized Religious Environments” (COMREL)
On religion and Indegneity in the Sakha Republic (Russia). We congratulate RVS member Liudmila Nikanorova on her defence!
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RVS member Liudmila Nikanorova defended her PhD thesis "Religion and Indegneity at Yhyakh" at the Artic University of Norway (UiT) on 9 September 2019.
Lidumila has done fieldwork in the Sakha Republic in Russia, exploring an event called yhyakh which attracts hundreds of thousands of people each year. In her thesis she explore the far-reaching effects of categorizing- both for those who categorize as well as for the one being categorized. For more on her thesis see below.
Her project is part of a larger NFR-funded comparative project on indigenous religion and global networks, the INREL-project.
Religion and Indigeneity at Yhyakh
Each summer in the Sakha Republic (Russia), hundreds of thousands of people celebrate an event called yhyakh. This dissertation explores articulations, performances, and translations of the concepts ‘religion’ and ‘indigeneity’ at and around contemporary yhyakhs. It focuses particularly on how yhyakh is understood and performed by its participants, on the motivations of the actors who promote different yhyakhs, and on a wide variety of circulating narratives. The study is ethnographic in method and based on fieldwork at and around the Tuymaada Yhyakh and the Olongkho Yhyakh from 2016 to 2018. Using articulation theory and heuristic models of religion-making and indigenous-making, the analysis unpacks how ‘religion’ and ‘indigeneity’ appear as descriptors, aspects, and parts of yhyakh. Yhyakh has attracted scholarly interest since the 17th century. This attention has only increased after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as the celebration of yhyakh has expanded rapidly and become a major rallying point of the Sakha revitalization movements. In both historical and contemporary contexts, scholars have categorized yhyakh as, for example, a ‘shamanic ceremony’, a ‘religious ritual’, the ‘Sakha national day’, and an ‘indigenous festival’. My ethnographic material reveals much broader variety of understandings of yhyakh, including ‘healing’, a ‘family holiday’, and a ‘day when Sakha feel Sakha’. By exploring how yhyakh and its practices are translated towards and away from ‘religion’ and ‘indigeneity’, not only by scholars but also by a wide range of other actors, I show how categorizing are powerful acts with far-reaching effects both for those who categorize and for that which is categorized.
Key words: yhyakh, Sakha people, religion, indigeneity, articulations, translations, performances.
Youth in Norway- religion, etnicity and gender. Congratulations to Ronald Mayora Synnes!
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RVS- student Ronald Mayora Synnes defended his PhD 25 July 2019 at the University of Agder. The title of his dissertation is «Ungdom i migrantmenigheter. En studie av forhandlinger om religion, etnisitet og kjønn.» For more about his project, and defence, read this:https://www.uia.no/arrangementer/disputas-ronald-mayora-synnes-ungdom-i-migrantmenigheter