Research Themes
Here you can read what themes are currently being researched at the department.
Environment, Climate and Disaster
Nature and environmental phenomena have many different meanings for people engaging with them. There is a broad spectra, ranging from indigenous ontologies and religious practices and engagements with nature, to nature-governing at the interface of the state and the market at the national and supranatural level.
Keywords: hydrosociality, risk & preparedness, temporality, climate change, ontologies & cosmologies, mobility, indigenous people, environmental politics, nature conservation, human-animal relations, environmental knowledge
Co-Existence and Belonging in Times of Unrest, Social Change and Existential Uncertainties
Global challenges have local consequences and affect how people manage to co-exist in times of polarization. The department's researchers work on social anxiety and conflict, as well as place-making and post-conflict challenges; with ethnographic focuses that unfold across borders and boundaries which are physical and political as well as imagined and socio-cultural.
Key words: Conflict; borders/boundaries; place-making & placement; belonging
Morality, Ethics and Cosmology
Socially constituted ideas of what is moral or ethical define a person’s social status and personhood. Researchers at the department are, among other things, interested in what is conceived as moral. Understandings of ethics and morality vary greatly in cultural contexts and are connected with cosmological ideas.
Key words: Moral personhood; ethical judgement; faith, religion and ethos; nihilism; moral boundaries; virtue and deviance; rituals.
Migration, Movement, Borders, States
Researchers at the department look into what migration and its associated topics tell us about states, laws, and how people find ways to overcome exclusion on the core-periphery continuum.
Key words: inclusion & exclusion, governance, borders & time, transnationalism, networks, racism, minorities, citizenship, criminalization
Urbanism and Infrastructure
Cities constitute thick materiality of buildings, technology, means of transportation, spatialized culture, and subcultures. The ways urban life and livelihood are structured affect possible life trajectories, social hierarchies, and visions of personal and national futures and dreams. Technology and infrastructure also influence the way we perceive and interact with the surrounding environment, nature, and even outer space.
Key words: Space, future & dreams, subjectivity, subcultures, inequalities, affect, nature & environment, connectivity, mediation, mobility, transmission, materiality, social change
Visualities, Media and Art
Visual representations of culture and communication, in the form of films and photos, have a preferred regime of social reproduction, meaning that they have claims about the realities they record. These claims are inscribed and bound by aesthetic norms, power relations and hierarchies, space, mindscapes, symbols and symbolism.
Key words: Representations, Aesthetics, Narratives, Inclusion & exclusion, Power relations, landscapes, Appropriation, Otherness, Agency of display, performance & performativity
Folkloristics, Folklore and Cultural Heritage
Folkloristics is the study of folklore, the informal and meaningful cultural expressions and practices that enrich everyday life. We analyze old and new traditions, stories, visual expressions, cultural heritage, rituals, tales, legends, and popular expressions that influence people's identity and worldview. In this way, we can discover and study cultural patterns, processes of change, norms and values.
Keywords: Cultural heritage, stories, visuality, folklore, rituals, legends, popular culture, identity-building, traditions, memories, sustainable visits.
Body, Health, Medicine and Death
Knowledge and practices related to medicine, the body, health and death are linked to cosmologies, politics, social structures and local historical legacies. Research at the department offers valuable insights into these processes and people's experiences of health and embodiment, taking into account both the local and the global context.
Keywords: forensic identification, embodiment, body, burials, gender, illness, disease, epidemic response, hazards, genital cutting