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This bachelor's thesis means to understand and identify the new ways librarians need to work, to ensure libraries as true democratic institutions under recent turbulent and antagonistic political times. Consequently, study if this challenges the neutrality norm that librarians may feel the need to attain. Through qualitative textual analysis of articles published in Biblioteksbladet and Magasin K and Chantal Mouffe’s Theory of Agonistic Pluralism as basis for this study, results show an agonistic struggle in a neutral liberal consensus. This entails for instance, the need for preparedness, argumentative skills, courage and an enthusiasm for questioning political pressure in an open debate.

The issue of legal pluralism in contemporary society Abstract This work aims to describe the phenomenon of legal pluralism, its expressions and functioning in contemporary society and evaluate the findings in connection with the weakening role of the state. The role of law is changing more and more in today's global world, especially in an increasingly less homogeneous society. The plurality of contemporary society is increasingly penetrating normative systems, which in turn affects the very functioning of the state as an authority. Legal pluralism reflects the life of contemporary society. From the perspective of legal pluralism, we gain a new understanding of law. The concept of legal pluralism enables the law to respond in a more flexible way to the plurality of contemporary society, as law increasingly faces difficulties in reflecting the social reality of contemporary society. Related to laws that do not reflect this plurality is a growing distrust of people in the state and its institutions, which contributes to the weakening role of the state. One of the possibilities for the state to strengthen its role is to restore confidence of the citizens in the state and its institutions. This can be also achieved by creating good written law. State law should take into account the phenomenon of legal...

In the last ten years there has been a resurgence of interest in teaching Shakespeare through performance. However, most literature on the topic continues to focus on the pragmatic selling points of how performance makes Shakespeare fun and understandable while remaining surprisingly silent on issues of theory and ethics. By investigating the ethical implications of performance pedagogy as it affects our students' construction of identity, empathy, and pluralistic tolerance we can better understand and discuss the potential of performance pedagogy in relation to the ethical goals of the Humanities. Performance Pedagogy has particular ethical potential due to the structure of performance and the effects of role-play on a student's identity. Lessons learned in the fictional world of a play can be transferred to real life allowing learning to take place in a world of more flexible rules and without real life consequences. Further, role-play also creates a unique blending of actor and character that encourages a compassionate rethinking of self and other. Although imperfect in its empathy, this emphasis on connection is still a moral alternative to the dehumanizing effects of seeing others in terms of complete alterity. Lastly, because performance encourages interpretation, it is a fruitful tool to encourage pluralism, a much-needed philosophy for our students today and one that in relation to Shakespeare can render particularly humanizing ends. Such a discussion of the ethical effects of performance pedagogy itself also focuses on principles of connection that ought to be applied to all scholarly endeavors in order to increase their meaning and morality.

Utbildning för hållbar utveckling (UHU) är ett koncept som trätt fram i syfte till att öka unga människors handlingskompetens. Den tidigare forskningen lyfter fram fyra komponenter som är väsentliga för att elever ska utveckla en handlingskompetens. Dessa är holism, autenticitet, pluralism och deliberation. Däremot påvisar tidigare att det är problematiskt att undervisa om hållbar utveckling med avseende på UHU då det anses vara för komplext. Den bakomliggande orsaken förhåller sig till att hållbarhetsfrågor berör olika värderingar, intressekonflikter och perspektiv men även att tillvägagångsätt över hur man kan införa ett undervisningskoncept med avseende på UHU, inte gjorts i den mån som det behövs. Ett sätt att undervisa utifrån dessa fyra komponenterna för att elever ska utveckla handlingskompetens, är genom rollspel där eleverna får en möjlighet att belysa olika perspektiv och synvinklar i en viss situationen. Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur ett rollspel kan medföra att elever utvecklar handlingskompetens och därmed bidra till ett tillvägagångsätt för att undervisa enligt UHU:s principer. För att göra det inkorporerades de fyra komponenterna i de didaktiska frågorna och därmed konstruerades en modell som användes för planering av ett lektionsupplägg. Lektionsupplägget prövades och omprövades med hjälp av didaktisk modellering och med hjälp av praktisk epistemologi analys har jag kunnat extrahera den data jag behöver för vidareutveckling av modellen. Utifrån studiens analys och resultat är förutsättningar för att elever ska utveckla handlingskompetens beroende på elevernas förståelse av det holistiska perspektivet och hur eleverna i rollspelet deliberativt bemöter varandra i ett pluralistiskt förhållningsätt, det vill säga hur eleverna belyser komplexitet, intressekonflikter och de olika perspektiv.

Denna undersökande studie görs inom formen för ett utvecklingsarbete, där jag tillsammans med fem andra lärarstudenter genomfört ett kulturprojekt tillsammans med en årskurs sju på en skola i Malmö. Projektet sökte utforska ett lärande som strävar efter elevers olikheter, subjektiviteter och unika egenarter, och där elevers skillnader ansågs utgöra viktig potential för lärandet. Projektet kan vidare beskrivas som en estetisk praktik med radikala anspråk på elevers perspektiv. I detta utvecklingsarbete kom elevers identiteter att spela avgörande betydelse för projektets utveckling. Centrala frågeställningar kom därför att kretsa kring hur identitet och lärande hänger samman.Med denna bakgrund har jag utifrån ett poststrukturalistiskt perspektiv undersökt pojkars sätt att göra maskuliniteter, gentemot rådande maskulinitetsdiskurs. Detta undersökande har genomförts med en diskursanalytisk etnografi som metod, med en kvalitativ ansats. Studiens resultat visar en komplex, motstridig och dynamisk bild av pojkars olika sätta att göra maskulinitet på, där skilda diskurser på olika nivåer tycktes konkurera om pojkars identitetsförhandlingar. I ett vidare perspektiv söker jag även begripa vilka betydelser de maskulinitetsskapande processerna fick för elevers möjligheter att uttrycka sina tankar, åsikter och idéer i det lärande, som strävade efter att vara pluralistisk. I detta sökande har jag funnit erkännandet som ett fruktbart begrepp att konstruera förståelse kring. Det tycktes som att ett erkännande av elevers identitet och kulturella kapital inte bara genererade möjligheter att sätta spår och avtryck i lärandet, utan också erbjöd en större variation och dynamisk bredd för pojkarna att göra maskulinitet på.

The aim of the present paper is to better understand the reality of religious pluralism, itscauses and the possibilities by which this situation could be maximized in the sense oftrying to reach a satisfactory agreement for all parties involved through reflections onpluralism. Corollary, it seeks to deepen the understanding on the topic ofmulticulturalism with a focus on the field of religious and political theory on topics suchas minorities, religious and cultural pluralism, liberal multiculturalism. In trying tosolve this spinney theoretical inquiry I chose to focus on a case study about theOrthodox Church’s traditional values that represent the keystone of what the Churchpreaches, with a strong focus on collective interests to the detriment of individual rights,intolerance of religious minorities.

Based on three and a half years of research among semi-cloistered Christian monastics and a dispersed network of non-monastic Christian contemplatives around the United States, this study shows how religious practitioners in both settings combined social action and intentional living with intellectual study and intensive contemplative practices in an effort to modify their ways of knowing, sensing, and experiencing the world. It explores the interplay of social diversity and cohesiveness in pluralistic society and the relationship of agency and habitus in practitioners' conscious attempts at spiritual transformation. Organized by the metaphor of a seeker journeying towards the inner chambers of a monastic chapel, The Porous Cell uses innovative "intersubjective" fieldwork methods to study these opaque interiorized, often silent communities, in order to show how solitude, chant, contemplation, attention, and a paradoxical capacity to combine active ritual with intentional "unknowing" develop and hone a powerful sense of communion and foster a unitive state in relationship to "life in the world." Cloistered monastics encouraged a commitment to ancient Christian ideals and practices, but both they and dispersed non-monastics enriched the movement's character by including aspects of other religious traditions. Partially inspired by Fredrik Barth's anthropology of knowledge, the thesis develops a novel theory of clines of multiple epistemologies, which include intellectual, experiential, performative, and contemplative knowledges, as well as the notion of "unknowing." This model of variable knowledges (both conscious and "embodied") shows how contemplative communities can be diverse and yet retain considerable cohesiveness and stability. American Christian contemplatives' ability to fuse so many spheres of knowledge and to live contemplatively challenges the often taken-for-granted segregation of the religious, secular, sacred, and profane in the modern world. Further, this study contributes to the anthropologies of perception, silence, embodiment, and experience, and to the anthropology and epistemology of Christianity. It extends American ethnography by its use of new methods for studying silence and performance, and by focusing on a highly educated and mostly urban, professional, Euro-American community (in both its geographically-situated and "non-gathered," network-based guises) which is rarely the subject of ethnographic research and is often assumed to be the demographic most likely to reject religion. / 2022-08-01T00:00:00Z

The growing Thai community in Eastern Massachusetts has an unofficial ethnic enclave that surrounds the neighborhood of Allston/Brighton. Studies of Thai communities in the United States indicate that Thai-Americans have limited access to quality health care in the United States due to factors that contribute to health disparities such as language barriers and cultural beliefs. As a result, Thai people have different approaches to how they treat illnesses through traditional Thai medicine (TTM), Western medicine (also called biomedicine), or a mixture of both medical systems. This study examines healthways Thai/Thai Americans in Eastern Massachusetts draw on in response to different illnesses. In-depth stories of how this community engages in illness prevention and responses to the experiences of illness illuminated by Thai people’s approaches to different medical systems helps us understand how they present their values when seeking medical care. I argue that responses to various illness episodes experienced by members of the Thai community in Eastern Massachusetts influence perceived health and health-seeking behaviors. Factors that contribute to Thai-American health practices include: religion, sociocultural elements (cultural identity, generational differences, cross-cultural differences, structural violence), and Thai constructs of illness and well-being.

This thesis explores the health-related decisions Latin American immigrant women make in MetroWest Massachusetts. Within public health and biomedical literature, women from Spanish-speaking communities are often measured by their adherence to biomedical guidelines. Several programs have been designed to increase compliance with recommended cancer screenings like Pap smears and mammograms in an effort to reduce health inequities between Latina populations and their white counterparts in the United States (Peek and Han 2009). Community Health Organizations often prioritize biomedical models of care, as Community Health Workers are typically trained in public health and biomedicine. Yet little research has been done on women’s conception of their own health. Using the theoretical concept of patterns of resort, this research examines what women prioritize for their own health needs, why, and what local resources women use to meet these needs. Women have a broad understanding of their own health, and use varying resources to meet the needs of physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual health needs. By understanding these specific health needs, researchers and those invested in immigrant communities may create more effective programs with women’s health in mind.