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 …
Tag: Articles
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…
“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…
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…
Bio-imaginaries: ‘Biologics’, Bricolage, and the Making of Pharmaceutical Knowledge
What does it mean when pharmaceuticals are called ‘biologics’? This article follows a pregnant person who has been hospitalised on a Norwegian rheumatology ward after being taken off her monoclonal antibody (mab) medication. She is painfully…
Anticipating Immunity: Vaccine-induced Immunity and Vaccine Safety in the Finnish News Coverage of COVID-19 Vaccines
In this article I draw on the concept of anticipation to examine Finnish news discourse on the development, licensing and administration of COVID-19 vaccines. I explore the interplay of anticipation of vaccine-induced immunity and vaccine sa…
Sounding Affective Consensus
This paper explores how New Orleans Black dockworkers created affective communities by utilizing brass bands, as evidenced by newspapers, union records, and testimonies from jazz musicians. In an attempt to weave together congruences between…
Affective Landscapes, Scenes, and Arrangements
This article discusses the affective dynamics of two interwoven spheres of musical life: on the one hand, the sphere of local musical engagements, often connected to the notion of scene; on the other, the sphere of digital music promotion an…
Muzak, Lo-Fi, and Acoustic Violence
Violence, including acoustic violence, can be remarkably resistant to critique; the semiotic structures upon which scholarly arguments rely may appear, in their representationalism, to have a distancing effect from the sheer materialism of v…
Music and the Affective Production of Violence in MMA
As widespread physical pursuits and popular entertainment forms, combat sports inform and constrain social understandings of violence. Recent research has discussed martial artists’ positioning of their practice vis-à-vis violence and the pr…
Worshipping Musically Online During Covid-19
The Covid-19-pandemic and resulting infection control measures drastically impacted the ability of Christian worshippers to gather and practice their faith. As a result, online solutions emerged as the primary option for maintaining religiou…
Deciphering Working Girl: Identity, Post-Feminism, and Power Dressing
InVisible Culture