UiS Open Journals (Univ. of Stavanger)
Not a member yet
457 research outputs found
Sort by
Remembering to Heal: The Boat, spiral time and other decolonial unearthings
Get PDFThis essay builds on the author’s spectatorship of the monumental performance installation, O Barco/The Boat, by Grada Kilomba, during its opening in Lisbon on September 3, 2021.Drawing inspiration from that work, the essay explores the concepts of spiral time and oraliture, as presented in Leda Maria Martins’ scholarship within performance studies, culminating in the introduction of the notion of decolonial unearthings. The text further presents how the idea was coined in the context of the author’s practice, research, and archive.The development of decolonial unearthings as a conceptual tool is supported in the study of European colonial history, especially the transatlantic traffic of enslaved people and Afro-diaspora Orisha mythology. Unearthing and remembering are thus regarded as steps toward the healing of colonial wounds.
Yemen through the lens of Hayat Al-Sharif
Get PDFWhen I started my photography journey, I travelled through seven governorates to document Yemeni heritage, handcraft and art. I initialized my work with aid from an artisans organization based in Washington DC. After the war started, I have been working with humanitarian projects to illustrate stories of the suffering of Yemeni women and children
User involvement or aspirations management? Work counsellors’ strategies in guiding newly arrived refugees into the Norwegian labour market
Get PDFThe last decades have seen a shift towards activation policies in welfare states, such as the introduction programme for refugees in Norway, a qualification programme that seeks to prepare refugees for the labour market. In the last decade, the programme has placed further focus on refugees’ duties rather than their rights, as it had previously done. This article examines the strategies that work counsellors in the introduction programme use to ‘activate’ and assist newly arrived refugees as they prepare to enter the Norwegian labour market. We focus on how work counsellors guide and motivate refugees in this process. We draw on 10 semi-structured interviews with work counsellors in various municipalities in southwestern Norway. We suggest that the activating strategies used by the work counsellors may be seen as a form of aspirations management to get the refugees to shift their aspirations toward those the work counsellors see as more achievable within a shorter period, to get them more quickly into the labour market. We suggest that unchecked power dynamics, together with increasing time-pressure on work counsellors, may be at play leading them to exert too much influence, and leading to user involvement practice not being properly implemented
Professionalism and faith: a case study of Salvation Army congregational social work in Norway
Get PDFThis article explores the role of faith in congregational social work. It investigates The Salvation Army (TSA), an international Christian church that provides social services in local communities. TSA’s congregational social work represents a specific case, in which spiritual values dictated by faith and social work principles are explicitly intertwined. In this article, a community of practice (CoP) perspective is used to analyse empirical data from a multiple-case study of TSA congregations. The article concludes that faith can be part of a professional ethos, by adding important values to a holistic understanding of social wor
Migrant healthcare assistants’ decision to work in long-term care: Experiences from Norway
Get PDFIn high-income countries, population ageing has a significant impact on the labour force and care demands. As a result, the tendency is to rely on migrant workers to meet workforce and care demands. Drawing on insights from Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, this study focused on unskilled migrant healthcare assistants in Norway’s long-term care. The objectives were to explore factors influencing the decision of unskilled migrant healthcare assistants to work in elderly care, sources of knowledge about work in elderly care, and challenges encountered in elderly care work. The key research questions were as follows: a) What factors influence the decision of migrant healthcare assistants to work in elderly care? b) What are the sources of knowledge/information about work in elderly care for migrant healthcare assistants? c) What are some of the challenges of working in elderly care for migrant healthcare assistants? Qualitative research and purposive sampling were used to recruit 20 participants: 13 unskilled migrant healthcare assistants and seven managers of long-term care facilities in South-Eastern and Northern Norway. Data were collected using in-depth individual interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation, and thematically analysed.
Findings indicated that factors influencing unskilled migrant healthcare assistants\u27 decision to work in the elderly care sector included cultural norms and values of caring for older people, nonrecognition of overseas qualifications and economic considerations. State-organized language learning programmes, Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) offices, as well as migrant family and community networks, provided crucial information about work in elderly care. Challenges regarding lack of career progression, temporary working contracts, low status and poor wages emerged. In conclusion, meaningful employment outcome through better opportunities for career progression are essential for unskilled migrant healthcare assistants’ well-being and care for older people. It would be useful for long-term care policymakers and stakeholders to address the challenges faced by its aged care workforce
Local self-governments and SDG-16: a case for cross-region marriages in rural Haryana, India
Get PDFThis paper makes a case for Gram Panchayats (or local self-governments) in rural Haryana to prevent violence and abuse against women in cross-regional marriages, and to promote inclusiveness. By using the notion of decentralization as the framework, the results of this research are based on a qualitative fieldwork conducted over two months in the Mahendragarh district, which included visits to seven villages, and interviews with women and village leaders. This paper attempts to answer the following research question: In what ways can strong local self-governments improve the social conditions for women and their children in cross-regional marriages in rural Haryana? Gram Panchayats are tasked with implementing Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which calls for developing inclusive and peaceful communities, ensuring that everyone has access to justice, and creating effective, inclusive institutions at all levels. The findings reveal that women, particularly those in cross-region marriages, are excluded from participating in Gram Panchayats, which have the potential to be the go-to institution for women in need of help. Women’s participation at all levels will increase the transparency and accountability of Gram Panchayats
Young, unaccompanied refugees’ expectations of social workers and social worker roles
Get PDFBackground: Young people who have travelled to another country, unaccompanied and with refugee status, are a both resilient and vulnerable group with specific needs. Supporting them is often challenging for social workers, and providing this support is mediated by the expectations that these young people have of social workers and social worker roles.
Aim: In this study, we explore how young unaccompanied refugees (YURs) perceive the roles of social workers in the national context of Norway, where concerns about the quality of social work for this group have been highlighted.
Method: Using the theoretical lens of role theory, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 Afghan boys between 16 and 23 years of age, living under the protection of the Child Welfare Services (CWS) in two municipalities in Norway. The interviews explored the boys’ positive and negative experiences of the social worker. A thematic analysis was conducted, in which the coding framework was informed by the premise that actual experience informs our expectations of other individuals’ behaviour and roles.
Findings: YURs’ expectations are more than instrumental, and more than a task they expect the social worker to perform. They also expect the task to be performed in a person-centred, therapeutic alliance (e.g. with humour and trust), and that the social worker exhibits particular personal characteristics or competences, besides being culturally competent and sensitive.
Conclusion: We find that YURs’ descriptions of the social worker’s roles of being a caregiver and practical helper are similar to what other young people in contact with the CWS expect. However, YURs expect an additional role, which is specific to this field of social work, namely that of an integration helper. However, the expectations that each individual young person has of social workers are individual, in flux and contextual, and not consistent over time. Therefore, we recommend prioritizing learning more about the young person’s individual expectations of the social worker roles, as well as a useful weighting of these roles for each individual young refugee
Når spiritualitet blir kroppslig: Personer i det norske alternativmiljøet forteller om oppvåkningsopplevelser og psykologisk transformasjon
Get PDFSpiritual awakening is becoming a common phenomenon in alternative spiritual communities and is no longer exclusive to a small elite of religious saints and disciples. There is limited research on spiritual experiences outside religious contexts in the Nordic countries. While relevant theological research exists on religious experiences in Christian contexts, much of the research on alternative spirituality is based on outsider perspectives that miss out on the deeper psychological phenomena experienced by “spiritual, but not religious” individuals. This article is based on three qualitative interviews with individuals in contemporary spiritual communities in Norway who have experienced spontaneous spiritual awakenings and speak openly about this. Focus is on the experience of altered states of consciousness, intense feelings of love, and physical energies in the body, which lead to permanent psychological transformation. Starting with a review of relevant Norwegian and Swedish research in the field, we apply a theoretical approach drawn from humanistic and transpersonal psychology to make sense of our interviewees’ experiences, and then discuss how these cases of embodied spiritual transformation differ from religious conversion and are better understood in terms of psychological concepts of trauma healing, self-actualization and human potential