Some of the most recent articles from open access anthropology journals (beta)
This thematic issue brings together current research focused on lived religion and/or lived theology. Several of the articles have been developed from papers presented at the national Research Conference in Theology and Religion held in Turk…
The existing literature on the role of religion in addressing xenophobia in South Africa has focused predominantly on Christianity, despite documented evidence of the involvement of other religions in campaigns against it. Our study is based…
This article examines the experiences of Thai women living in Finland, addressing a significant gap in research regarding their perspectives on the challenges they face in a new environment, particularly through the lens of Buddhism. In cont…
Persistent and newly emerging conflicts around the world have made the search for successful conflict resolution imperative. We need insights into how to prevent violent clashes, and how to find ways to peace and reconciliation. Since the 19…
In two well-known passages from Paul Ricœur’s work (Ricœur 1990b, 187; 2006, 260), the author proposes approaching memorial writing of the Holocaust not necessarily in the same terms as historiography. On the basis of these passages, the aim…
Paul Ricœur considered the theme of non-peace in self-affirmation to have such existential and phenomenological bearing that he devoted his intellectual capacity to explore the self that is never immediately present to oneself or at immediat…
Beginning with images of rampant destruction and violence in our day, Paul Ricœur’s reflections on the political paradox and his “little ethics” (contained in Oneself as Another) are responses to peace and understanding. Ricœur is concerned …
With its emphasis on action and new possibilities opened by imagination, Paul Ricœur’s narrative theory offers insights to understanding each other in a world of polarized views. His theory is helpful in describing the potential that narrati…
Following Part I, this essay (Part II) continues my attempt to develop an ontology of peace by drawing resources from Ricœur’s thought. I begin with Augustine, Dionysius, and Aquinas to show that peace is not contrary to our humanity but is …
This article critically examines Paul Ricœur’s philosophical contributions to inter-religious dialogue, focusing on his treatment of religion as a presumed universal category. Ricœur’s insights into religious violence and post-religious fait…
There is a tension in Ricœur’s thinking between the undeniable presence of violence and his trust in a primordial goodness of existence. This tension is linked to Ricœur’s understanding of the human being as ambiguous and fragile, torn betwe…
This essay is the first of two seeking to draw out an ontology of peace from Paul Ricoeur’s thought. This first essay (Part I) argues that Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of creation provides the best starting point because of its insistence on…
This article develops the concept of community lore, initially devised by the social learning theorists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991). In extending this promising but hitherto neglected aspect of their work, this article sheds light on…
Learning penetrates religion in many ways. Primary religious socialisation – sometimes referred to as religious nurture – is the process by which children are explicitly and purposefully taught to do things religiously or they learn implicit…
This article discusses adult conversion in the Russian Baptist community as the unlearning of old sinful ways of living. Russian Baptists see conversion as an act of repentance, surrendering to Christ, and becoming born again, and as a life-…
Women often embody the central values and practices of their religious tradition. When they leave their community, women find a part of the “religious tapestry” remaining with them long after their disengagement. In this article, we draw fro…
This article seeks a better understanding of how Rudolf Steiner envisioned his reform pedagogy as a site of spiritual learning (for example through art, seasonal festivals, ritual drama, etc.), but also as a specific site intended to resist the encroac…
Numerous scholars have signalled that neo-pagan practitioners use their body and their senses to interact with the divine and elaborate a spiritual experience. However, the learning process followed to achieve and produce a sensing body capa…
The concept of “unlearning” has been positively endorsed in both self-help literature and organizational research, but has yet to be discussed in the study of religions. Is there room for it in the conceptual space of religious socialization…
Atheism has had a strong presence on YouTube since its founding in the mid-2000s, which coincided with the rise of the new atheism movement, and lay atheists were quick to use the platform to spread new atheist ideas. Drawing from a sample of sixty-fiv…
Over the course of only a few decades during the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, part of mainstream Buddhist education underwent a striking shift in China. From being a secluded practice within monastery walls taught by monasti…
Sohbet (conversation) is a weekly, informal, religious-learning gathering that has been conducted by members of the Islamic Hizmet/Gülen Movement since its inception. The movement was established in Turkey in 1966 by Fethullah Gülen and his …
Over the last fifty years a plethora of new spiritual practices has emerged in the Church of Sweden. Many fall within a category of holistic practices, aimed at engaging body, soul, and spirit. Among these, two categories are dominant: meditations and …
Our article has two aims: first, to track the ethos of learning and the importance of the guru–disciple relationship in the Amma movement, and secondly, to explore the ways in which one Finnish disciple frames her life though this special re…
In this article, I examine what selected Muslim women in Finland and Egypt do with the Qur’an in their daily lives. I shed light on their modes of engagement with the Qur’an (spiritual, emotional, intellectual, communal). I analyse how their…