UiS Open Journals (Univ. of Stavanger)
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Investigations into Asatru: A Critical Historiography
Get PDF“Asatru”, the modern worship of the Heathen deities of Scandinavia and Northern Europe, is a relatively young, internationally developing religious phenomenon. Since the 1990’s researchers have gradually built a body of academic literature seeking to chronicle and contextualize Asatru’s multifaceted histories, beliefs, practices and social developments within the larger arena of Western societies. This critical historiography provides an over-view of the most influential extant research of Asatru and frames the developing academic discourse. The article shows that Asatru is a dynamic, heterogenous web of intersected movements which are both rapidly developing, and prone to the influences of overarching societal discourses, and that this is especially true of popular and academic discourses aimed at Asatru itself. This historiography serves as a landmark demonstrating where we have come so far as researchers with our study of and relationship with Asatru, and what steps we might consider taking in the future.  
Social work bachelor students’ knowledge awareness during field practice: Student’s perspectives
Get PDFSocial work has increasingly become a research-based discipline, while at the same time acknowledging the importance of knowledge gained through practical experience and user knowledge. Awareness of various forms of knowledge becomes particularly relevant to practice as it constitutes a framework for understanding and addressing social problems in real-life situations. This article presents findings from a Q methodological study exploring social work bachelor students’ perspectives on knowledge after taking part in research-oriented activities during field practice placement in Norwegian welfare organizations. The aim of the study was to explore how bachelor students of social work understand and find knowledge useful to social work practice. Q methodology aims at revealing shared perspectives, and facilitates comparison between perspectives. Three perspectives on knowledge emerged from the study. The first emphasizes the importance of combining experience-based knowledge and research-based knowledge. The second suggests an orientation towards research-based knowledge as a strategy for innovation, while the third focuses on an active and confident, yet critical, use of research-based knowledge when working with service users. Field placements as arenas for enhancing students’ knowledge awareness, and bridging various forms of knowledge, are discussed in light of these findings
Maskinen i verktøykassa
Get PDFWe need to address the way shifting methods in archaeology affect the knowledge of the past. The current use of rural areas for cultivation or pasture, dictates our choice of survey- and excavation methods in development-led archaeology. While the focus is placed on visibility in areas currently used as pastures, there is a tendency not to discuss what might have been removed in cultivated areas. If we let the understanding of prehistoric land use be dictated by modern land use, we risk creating two sets of knowledge of the past which appear mutually exclusive. It is crucial that material from both cultivated fields and pastures are treated as differently preserved fragments of the same archaeological phenomena. The excavation at Myklebust, Sola municipality provides an example of the challenges stemming from the application of different methodologies and interpretations due to modern land use. Regarding the long-term use of sites such as Myklebust, modern historicism provides a view of temporality which runs to the heart of the discipline. The concentrated, multi-phase, chaotic nature of archaeological remains at this site is considered key to the importance of these sites, for both past and present practices. It can take time to revise or update long-held views of the past, and of what are considered the most suitable ways of deepening our knowledge of that past. If excavation and fieldwork are to play a central part in research development, it must begin with our willingness to broaden our perspectives in terms of field practices
Ett röjningsröseområde i Farstorp – odling, begravning och ritual
Get PDFThis paper problematises the categories grave and clearance cairn, based on source-material from Farstorp, Småland. A central point of departure for the analysis is landuse in a long-term perspective. Parts of a clearance-cairn site, comprising clearance-cairns, graves and constructions similar to graves although less well–built, were excavated. The latter were termed complex cairns. Exterior elements were kerbs and surface layers of fire-cracked stones. Interior features resembled cremation layers with fire-cracked stones. Inside and adjacent to these, burnt animal bones and other objects, including intact pots containing food, had been deposited. The main building material was clearance stones, plausibly from surrounding arable land. Features mainly date to Late Roman Iron Age and Migration Period. Fire-cracked stones and burnt animal bones are interpreted as waste from ritual meals, consumed during spring and autumn farm work. Depositions of grinding stones support the assumption that fertility of the land was an important ritual theme. Participants of these meals might be members of the household that held the land rights. A few human bones were deposited in each grave, possibly from deceased members of the owner family who might be expected to act in favour of their living descendants, to enhance fertility in general. Such deposits may also have demonstrated and consolidated land rights
Fish for grain? Archaeoentomological research and emerging patterns of exchange
Get PDFA novel pathway for understanding exchange is via what might be termed historical autecology, in particular, trying to assess introductions and invasive insect species in the environments under investigation. Invertebrates can provide very detailed information on this front, as they inevitably accompany any trading or raiding activities, in ships, either in ballast, dunnage or goods, and overland in packing or commodity. Grain was widely shipped to the north from southern Baltic and North Sea ports, and archaeoentomological research in northern Norway and Iceland has demonstrated that exotic pests for these parts of the world, which rely on the warmth of the storerooms for their survival, arrived as part of the exchange process of fish or skins for grain; a range of other species were transported in dunnage and ballast. This paper discusses insect results and mechanisms for insect pest introductions from a range of sites relevant to the Hanseatic trade, including North Atlantic ones, to show the potential of this research and to provide a framework for future research
Gautavik - a trading site in Iceland re-examined
No full textGautavík is a well-known archaeological site on the east coast of Iceland. It was partially excavated in 1979 and interpreted as a seasonal occupied trading site, abandoned shortly after c. 1500. However, recent archaeological research on the excavated ceramics, which hitherto had not been studied in detail, raised doubts about the interpretation regarding the dating and function of the site. New research was then initiated that included an investigation of written documents in the archives of Bremen, Hamburg, and Copenhagen, pertaining to the trade with Iceland during the sixteenth century. On the basis of the new results presented here we now interpret Gautavík to have been a trading harbour that also included a farm, at least periodically, occupied from the late twelfth century, at the latest, until shortly before 1600. Gautavík was a place of supra-regional importance, being the main port of entry in Berufjörður during the medieval period. In the sixteenth century, however, Gautavík lost its importance. This was a period of intensive trade of German merchants with Iceland, and after Bremen and Hamburg merchants established Djúpivogur and Fýluvogur at the entrance of the fjord c. 1570, both gradually superseded Gautavík, such that shortly before 1600 trade was no longer conducted there
Mystik och polemik : Hur begreppet gnosis förstås och används av Lectorium Rosicrucianum
Get PDFIn recent studies of Western esotericism, the essentialist status and “religionist” design of the concept of gnosis has been disputed. Current aspects of the concept to discuss are gnosis as modern construction, as reflective surface of a secular worldview, and as an element in revisionary historiographies. This article explores the dynamic of tradition and renewal of the concept of gnosis, employing as a case study the Lectorium Rosicrucianum, an international Rosicrucian New Religious Movement that so far has received little academic attention. My methodological procedure is a Weberian analysis of the LR:s application of the concept of gnosis in legitimation strategies and in blending charismatic appeal with claims of traditional authority. I argue that while a construct of LR as ideological “Gnostic dualists” can be derived from their polemical discourse, their outlook of “dynamic dualism”, drawing on alchemy and German mysticism, retains gnosis as both an ineffable, mytho-poetically circumscribed experience and as social and corporeal phenomena
The establishment (and disestablishment) of social work in Britain: The ambivalence of public recognition
Get PDFThis paper presents a brief history of the development of social work in Britain, exploring some of the tensions that derive from gaining public acceptance and social establishment. This is analysed using the psychoanalytic concepts of ambivalence and displacement. The locus that social work enjoys as part of the establishment is shown to be ambivalent. The establishment of social work as an accepted public face of welfare is critiqued, showing both the benefits of acceptance and problems that arise from seeking social approval. The positioning of contemporary social work as sacrifice will also be considered.
It is in the role of ‘sacrifice’ that social work maintains its public face – carrying away the transgressions of society and being loaded with guilt by society (displacement) – but sacrifice also offers a way forward to maintain professional integrity by walking alongside the marginalised, disadvantaged, stigmatised and social work, offering itself as an expiation on behalf of the people with whom social workers practis
Constructing Identities: Structure and practice in the Early Broze Age - Southwest Norway
Get PDFThis book explores the construction of regional identities in the Early Bronze Age through the temporal variation in burial practice in Southwest Norway. Earthen barrows from the regions Etne, Karmøy, Jæren, and Lista are used as the archaeological source for this study. How historically constituted structures together with external practice form part of an open-ended process of identity construction is investigated. Previous research has often used a set, rigid definition of identity, and earthen barrows along the coast of Southwest Norway have therefore frequently been portrayed as part of a southern Scandinavian culture. These perceptions are not necessarily wrong, but neglect the complicated processes that give rise to groups. In this study it is argued that patterns found in the material remains, both unintentional and intentional, express regional variation. Through a quantitative methodology based on a selection of focus points and spatial analysis in ArcGIS the multifaceted process behind identity construction is showcased. As a result, the southwest coast of Norway during the Early Bronze Age can be seen as a more complex and dynamic region. Although many similarities between regions are shared, they are also clearly divided and competitive