Is appropriation a useful category for scholarship on religion?
Concluding remarks for the special issue of Approaching Religion, ‘Appropriation as a Perspective and Topic in the Study of Religion and Spirituality’.
Facilitating pura medicina
In this article, based on my doctoral research, I discuss the appropriation of religious elements from South America by Finnish ‘mystical tourists’. The plant medicine ceremonies are approached as spiritual commodities. Imagining local beliefs and prac…
Accusing witches in the twenty-first century
There is little about globalized modern magical-religious Witchcraft that isn’t borrowed. It is well established that it is a creative response to modernity rather than an ancient continuous practice. Its inventiveness also makes it ripe for charges of…
Tradition and ownership
A new dispute about the ownership of Karelian laments emerged in Finland in 2021. The severely endangered Karelian language is the closest relative of Finnish. Karelian laments were brought into new Finnish contexts during the late twentieth century by…
Shades of whiteness
This study examines the appropriation of religious symbols by the Nordic Alt-Right over the last decade, focusing on their use for völkisch identity construction around whiteness. It locates this signification historically, both before and during the T…
Inter- and intra-religious appropriation
Moluccan people arrived in the Netherlands in 1951, as a result of the complicated process of the decolonization of Indonesia. A situation of permanent waiting and political disappointment resulted in this growing Moluccan community remaining. The Molu…
‘When somebody tells you who you are’
This article investigates the notion of spiritual appropriation in Finnish schools, with a particular focus on the experiences of religious minorities. It draws on narratives from these communities, shedding light on their daily experiences in the educ…
Appropriation as a perspective and topic in the study of religion and spirituality
Cultural appropriation is a timely topic that has been taking up a lot of space in public discussions. The concept is often applied in heated debates aimed at calling out’ different actors and actions as appropriation, or on the other hand t…
The appropriation of mindfulness in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland
Mindfulness has gained increasing popularity across Western societies over the past couple of decades, although mainly in forms that have been stripped of all religious content. During this period, the practice has also attracted the interest of mainst…
Cultural determinants of fertility behaviour in Nigeria
The study examined the influence of cultural variables, namely age of entering into marriage, belief systems and sex preference on fertility behaviour among women in Nigeria. Preference theory was adopted as a framework for explaining fertility behavio…
Indigenous medicine among the Dagaaba of North-Western Ghana
This study pays attention to indigenous medicine practices and healing among the Dagaaba of North-Western Ghana. Based on Dagaaba’s theories of traditional medicine and qualitative sources of data, we confirm and further argue that the indigenous tradi…
Sociological reflections on the Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria
This paper on the Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Based on sociological perspectives, the main objective of the paper is to examine and measure the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on: (i) income (ii) quality of life and (iii) standard of living in Nigeri…
Between local architecture and modernity: An ethnography of the Bulsa house in Northern Ghana
This paper focuses on the concept of well-being as expressed in the context of local architecture and the changes that have taken place in this area among the Bulsa in northern Ghana. Anthropologists and sociologists have argued that the essence of loc…
Cultural linguistic interpretation of masculinity in selected Igbo burial songs and rites
Igbo burial songs and rites through the framework of cultural cognition is the focus of this study. The Igbo ethnic group of South-eastern Nigeria are religious people who believe in the mutual and peaceful co-existence of dichotomous categories such a…
Ibrahim på ramadan-tv
Profeten Ibrahim er en central figur i islam, som i disse år bliver påberåbt både som fælles stamfader til muslimer, kristne og jøder og som symbol for jihadister. Mens Ibrahims plads i Koranen og de klassiske islamiske tekster er velbeskr…
Ibrahim på ramadan-tv
Profeten Ibrahim er en central figur i islam, som i disse år bliver påberåbt både som fælles stamfader til muslimer, kristne og jøder og som symbol for jihadister. Mens Ibrahims plads i Koranen og de klassiske islamiske tekster er velbeskr…
Islamisk vinpoesi från Ibn al-Farid till Ian Dallas
Genom islams historia har sufiska poeter ofta beskrivit den överväldigande kärleken till Gud som en berusning på vin – den gudomliga kärlekens eviga vin som genomsyrar allt som existerar. Föreliggande artikel utforskar tre uttryck för sufi…
Islamic supplementary education as an extra-curricular activity
Sociological studies have shown that teenagers in larger Swedish cities from ‘poor result schools’ participate in extra-curricular activities connected to religion more frequently than others, and that involvement in such religious activities is…
Tabligh, Tarbiyyat and the Religious Education of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat in Scandinavia
The article is based on a study of the Jamia Ahmadiyya UK and its Scandinavian-born Muslim students and alumni for an MA thesis. Drawing on fieldwork and interview material collected between September 2019 and January 2020, it identifies tabligh (propa…
Sharing and Caring
Muslim women dedicate themselves to Islamic educational activities as an important aspect of their religious engagement, and pious Muslim Danish women are no exception. One important element of this engagement appears to be the sharing of …
Islamic spiritual care and negative religious coping
This article discusses religious coping behaviors in relation to Islamic spiritual care practices. Islamic spiritual care is an established practice, integrated in many European countries’ health and welfare services, and an emerging field…
Nigerian Literary Imagination and the Nationhood Project, by Toyin Falola
This book review focuses on Toyin Falola’s 2022 study entitled Nigerian Literary Imagination and the Nationhood Project. The review draws attention to how Falola historicises the evolution of Nigerian literature and its representation of national reali…
Gendered Dance and Bodily Display for (Dis)empowerment as Represented in Novuyo Tshuma’s Shadows
In Zimbabwe, images of the female body in fiction and the media are gradually shifting from being interpreted as merely sexualized objects of male visual consumption to those of resistance to and defiance against sexist objectification, exploitation, a…
(Re)Imagining Africa in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (2018)
This article examines Ryan Coogler’s film Black Panther (2018) and the critical conversations it raises, which are problematized by its perceived failure to accurately represent Black diasporic experiences, the racist vitriol against it and its concern…
In the Belly of the River
This study illustrates the significance of water for the Murle people of South Sudan. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, we analyse traditional practices and metaphorical expressions in the spontaneous speech of male members of the laŋo age-set. We s…