The article discusses Hans Jørgen Lundager Jensen’s view of the relationship between the study of religion as an academic discipline and religious education in Danish high schools. For Hans Jørgen,... Show moreThe article discusses Hans Jørgen Lundager Jensen’s view of the relationship between the study of religion as an academic discipline and religious education in Danish high schools. For Hans Jørgen, the societal relevance of our discipline lies in the education of high school teachers who can communicate solid knowledge of the world’s religions and challenge stereotypes and prejudices. Hans Jørgen’s ideas on the study of religion as academic teacher training were formed during his own studies in the 1970s of what was then called the Study of Christianity (kristendomskundskab), but they are equally relevant today. His views have inspired the author of the present article in his work on improving religious education in the Netherlands. Show less
In this article I put forward a social constructivist perspective on state use of Private Military and Security Contractors (PMSCs). I will argue that state outsourcing decisions are, to a large... Show moreIn this article I put forward a social constructivist perspective on state use of Private Military and Security Contractors (PMSCs). I will argue that state outsourcing decisions are, to a large extent, shaped by nationally shared values, understandings and dispositions. Concretely, I first provide a detailed overview of the extent of domestic and deployed contracting by the Danish Defence and, thereafter, based on a number of semi-structured interviews, I expose the dominant understandings that shaped how PMSCs have come to be understood in Denmark. By so doing I can show that the employment of PMSCs by the Danish Defence remains comparatively limited because it is largely perceived as inappropriate and as incompatible with what it means to be ‘Danish’. Although Denmark too has to balance its international engagements with the limited resources allocated to defence (the typical functional pressures) Danish particular ‘soft’ neoliberalism and ‘hard’ commitments to IHL speak against using private actors to make that possible. This means I take in the more abstract, macro-level discussions on the end of the Cold War and the advent of neoliberalism but go beyond by asking whether, and if so how, these and other collective experiences and understandings actually (co-)shape(d) outsourcing decisions. Show less
This article identifies and provides examples of five recurring speech patterns on dating platforms that users might experience as racist and/or xenophobic. Empirical material comes from over... Show moreThis article identifies and provides examples of five recurring speech patterns on dating platforms that users might experience as racist and/or xenophobic. Empirical material comes from over 3000 Copenhagen-based profile texts on Grindr and PlanetRomeo—two platforms that cater primarily to men seeking men—as well as from interviews with twelve recent immigrants to the greater Copenhagen area who use these platforms. Theories of everyday racism (Essed, 1991), sexual racism (Callander, 2015), and entitlement racism (Essed, 2013; Essed and Muhr, 2018) informed the formulation of these five patterns, which I identify as the following: persistent questions about the origins of people with migration background; racial-sexual exclusions; racial-sexual fetishes; conflation between (potential) immigrants and economic opportunism; and insults directed at immigrants based on race, nationality, or religion. As an exploratory study, this article mainly serves to inform readers of the various ways immigrants and people of color can experience racism and xenophobia while participating in online sexual and social networking platforms; but secondly, the chapter archives the mercurial and fleeting (albeit historically embedded) discourses on these platforms for future researchers interested in comparing racisms over time and across cultures. Show less
Beukel, T.O. van den; Hommel, K.; Kamper, A.L.; Heaf, J.G.; Siegert, C.E.H.; Honig, A.; ... ; Norredam, M. 2016
