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- Moberg, Jessica
(författare)
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Piety, Intimacy and Mobility : A Case Study of Charismatic Christianity in Present-day Stockholm
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Stockholm County is a post-industrial Swedish region characterized by high levels of mobility and technologization as well as ethnic and religious diversity. Among its religious minorities exist various strands of charismatic Christianity, some of which originate from the Pentecostal revival of the early 20th century and some of which belong to more recent movements.The aim of this ethnographic study is to examine how affiliates of the multicultural charismatic Christian congregation New Life Church practice religiosity within the context of their personal daily lives, within the framework of the general congregation and in terms of their involvements with other religious organizations in the area of Stockholm.Beginning with the assumption that the practice of contemporary religiosity and the development of a religious identity are part of an ongoing process of habituation, the study describes how practitioners cultivate a form of charismatic piety characterized by certain embodied orientations, patterns of ritualization and narrative genres. To shed further light on this process, it draws upon a variety of theories concerning ritualization, embodiment, performance, narratives and materiality. Apart from this, the study also constitutes an attempt to explore and measure the impact on the practitioners’ religiosity of late modern developments such as urbanization, detraditionalization and global mobility as well as the growing absorption in consumerism, emotional intimacy and the unfolding of the “authentic” inner self.While pursuing these ends, the study also calls into question previous assumptions about charismatic Christianity in Sweden, most particularly the assumption that today’s practitioners remain inclined to be entirely faithful to one given institution and its system of beliefs and practices. Indeed this view is directly challenged herein by the finding that contemporary charismatics are far more inclined to eclectically appropriate elements and models of thoughts from various contexts of origin as well as to affiliate with and/or visit multiple Christian institutions.
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| 2. |
- Petrov, Kristian
(författare)
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Tillbaka till framtiden : Modernitet, postmodernitet och generationsidentitet i Gorbačevs glasnost´ och perestrojka
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation deals with the concepts glasnost and perestroika during the Gorbachev era 1985–1991. It offers an explanation to the rise and fall of these concepts and casts light on their modern and postmodern implications, as well as their historical and generational preconditions. In light of the Soviet and Russian conceptual history, Gorbachev’s articulation of glasnost and perestroika is contrasted with the reception of these concepts in what at that time came to be called Russian postmodernism. Glasnost and perestroika both confirm and transcend Soviet modernity. They are both future-oriented but at the same time possess retrospective anchorage. The present study reconstructs the experience encapsulated in the concepts, the expectations they unleashed and the tensions they triggered. The Gorbachev era signaled a rupture in the temporal order of modernity. During this time Soviet modernity lost confidence in its self. With glasnost and perestroika a suppressed past opened up which blocked the futurist potential inherent in the present. The concept-theoretical perspective assumed in the dissertation helps explain essential aspects of the dramatic turn of events. Postmodernism’s relationship to the concepts is mainly antagonistic. At the same time glasnost and perestroika were essential to the self-identity creating process of postmodernism and its development of an understanding of a specific late Soviet postmodern situation. Beneath the surface a conflict evolves, constituted in intergenerational terms. The vast differences in deployment of the two key notions appear related to generation specific historical experiences. This is apparent in the glasnost- and perestroika discussions of the 19th and 20th centuries. In several respects the 20th century discourse reflects that of the 19th century. The analysis in the present dissertation demonstrates how Gorbachev, on the basis of his generation-specific experience as a man of the 1960s actively sought to articulate an alternative reconstruction (perestroika) and did so with a distinct ideological accent. The postmodernists, the last Soviet generation, bore the imprint of the stagnation of the Brezhnev era and had no ideal past to resuscitate. Instead of reconstructing social reality they tried to place themselves outside it. This apolitical stance however embodied both anti-political and political implications.
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