Abstraction as Resistance to Racialized Surveillance: The Intersections of Art, Technology, and Identity in the Age of Computer Vision
InVisible Culture
Tag: Articles
Instagram and the Memed Self
InVisible Culture
Politics of Race, Belonging and Community in Yeboyah’s music video ‘Elovena’
The Elovena maiden is, for some, one of the most important cultural symbols of the Finnish identity. This character has traditionally been portrayed as a blond, blue-eyed white woman and repeatedly used in artistic and commercial contexts. I…
‘We Feel Something’
On February 11, 1965, less than one year after the outset of the Brazilian military dictatorship, singer Maria Bethânia assumed one of the principal roles in the musical theater piece Opinião in Rio de Janeiro. Taking over for Nara Leão, …
Street Rhythms and the Revolution
Cuban street vendors use pregones, high-pitched rhymes and rhythms, to promote their goods and services. This ambulant form of small-scale commerce has been part of the urban soundscape since the early years of Spanish colonization. While of…
Affective Turn, or Return?
The ‘affective turn’ suggests that we pay attention to how affects create subjectivities, build communities, and shape new forms of politics in the making. It invites us to move beyond established humanities and social science paradigms and …
Grave Reverberations: Inherited Colonial Logics during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines
Using the theory of reverberations, we track the dissonant transformation of sanitation regimes during the American colonial period in the Philippines, particularly during the cholera epidemic of 1902, to the mis/management of the COVID-19 p…
“I used to be a traitor”
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-…
Gendered and Embodied Un/learning among Women Disengaging from Faith in the UK and Finland
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…
Can a case be made for “unlearning” in the study of religions?
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…
Communities of Practice and the Buddhist Education Reforms of Early-Twentieth-Century China
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
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 …
Learning in the Intimacy of the Guru-Disciple Relationship
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…
Engaging with the Qur’an
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…
Hop-on Hop-off Spirituality
In contemporary spirituality-related thought and behaviour in Estonia (as well as in a number of other regions), a phenomenon can be observed that I call hop-on hop-off spirituality. This means testing and tasting of various forms of contemp…
A Laboratory of Stories
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…
Newcomers Learning Religious Ritual
In this article, we explore the learning of newcomers in a religious community through a micro-sociological approach, making use of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger’s (1991) notion of “legitimate peripheral participation” to conceptualize initi…
The Medical Tech Facilitator: An Emerging Position in Dutch Public Healthcare and Their Tinkering Practices
This article focuses on the emerging position of the ‘medical tech facilitator’ developed by practitioners in the Dutch public healthcare system. The analysis is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in Dutch hospitals. It highlights,…
Diversity amongst Decision Makers?: Workplace Inequality, Black Underrepresentation, and the Afterlife of Colonialism in NHS Governance
Whereas senior management within NHS England was once so monocultural that it was dubbed the ‘snowy white peaks of the NHS’, recent data suggests that things have begun to change. However, Black staff in particular are still underrepresented…
Concerning ‘Neglect’: Perspectives on the Prioritisation of Mental Health Conditions in Protracted Displacement Contexts
‘Neglect’ is a lucrative concept attracting billions of US dollars in research and development funding and transforming what is prioritised in global health. Stemming from a wider project aiming to improve healthcare at the intersection of g…
The Butt of the Joke: Humour and Queer Care at an Anal Dysplasia Clinic
Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork I conducted at an anal cancer prevention clinic in Chicago, USA, this article considers queer camp humour as a care practice to better understand how providers and patients navigate clinical inter…
Music, Phones and Bank Loans
This article explores the making of two branded Spotify playlists to critique the concept of ‘affective labor.’ Over the last few decades, scholars have argued that social media users and creative industries workers alike are engaged in a ne…
Facing Sameness: Reconsidering the Radicality of Tom of Finland
InVisible Culture
Demonizing Cumbia: The Skin and Flesh of Radamel 666’s Version of “Yo me llamo cumbia” (“My Name is Cumbia”)
InVisible Culture
Pandemic Life-lines: A Multimodal Autoethnography of COVID-19 Illness, Isolation, and Shared Immunities
As a crosscutting concept in biology, anthropology, and philosophy, immunity has been a critical ‘site’ of debate on the relations between self and other, organism and environment, risk and responsibility, the corporeal and the political. In…