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This article discusses relationships between temporariness and belonging among Pakistani middle-class migrants in Dubai. We explore reasons that push them to move to Dubai and how their professional position and temporary status affect their sense of belonging. Based upon unstructured interviews with 20 Pakistanis, our findings show that temporariness is problematized, but not explicitly contested, by the participants, who all expressed a strong sense of belonging to Dubai despite their lack of citizenship rights. We suggest that these findings relate to the participants’ ability to draw upon socio-economic resources and networks to enable further transnational mobility.

Religion is a key site for constructions of masculinity, and visions of a gender equal society must include religious men. This study examines how a group of British white, heterosexual, middle-class, lay Anglican men construct masculinities via discourses on church-going, worship styles, and godly submission. The interviewed men express a hybrid form of masculinity, informed by religious faith, that embraces typically “feminine” characteristics such as love, humility, and vulnerability. At the same time, they articulate ideals of heteronormativity and essentialized gender differences that support hegemonic masculinity. The participants engage simultaneously in a selective, “discursive distancing” from, and a discursive alignment with, hegemonic masculinity norms, thus revealing tensions between competing masculinity norms.

This article examines discourses of authenticity embedded in European popular culture based on an empirical study of British and Greek women’s magazines. After a quantitative content analysis of 575 articles published in Greek and British editions of Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire during 2012–2016, we conducted a qualitative repertoire analysis of 80 articles and identified a shared discursive repertoire, that of women’s ‘authentic self’. Our analysis suggests that discourses of authenticity in women’s magazines contain contradictory elements. First, they are characterised by a ‘can do’ philosophy, an emphasis on ‘body-positivity’, ‘self-acceptance’ and self-help advice, which suggests women’s agency as well as a normalisation of postfeminist gender anxieties. Second, the discourses encourage women to accept their bodies, ‘internal selves’ and current circumstances through self-monitoring and self-surveillance, while silencing societal barriers that form obstacles to achieving ‘an authentic self’. These authenticity discourses rely on a triple entanglement of notions derived from third-wave feminism, post-feminism and neoliberal discourse.

Secular and religious women have a history of fighting for women’s rights and gender equality. Yet, contemporary feminist and women’s movements in the West are largely understood as secular, and as rejecting religion, and religion is often perceived as the antithesis of empowerment and emancipation. In this article I problematise the relationship between feminism, secularism and religion via a discussion of secular feminist views on women and religion, and religious women’s views on secular feminism. Bringing together previously separate strands of work, this article provides an original analysis of how both secular feminist women and non-feminist religious women engage in discursive articulations of Othering, constructing inferior subjects who are (dis-)placed outside the boundary of ‘women like us’. Such discursive representations, which are rooted in perceptions of feminism and religion as unitary and static, contribute to the construction and maintenance of sharp boundaries between secular and religious women, thus hindering the potential for dialogue and collaboration in support of women’s rights and gender equality.

Religion, and in particular Christianity, is losing ground in the UK as fewer people identify as Christian and more people report having no religion. Although religion remains influential in politi...

The sociological ‘lived religion’ approach focuses on the experiences of religious individuals in everyday life, whilst also considering the institutional aspects of religion that they may engage with. It emphasizes that individuals do not simply ‘copy’ institutional religious prescriptions; instead, it posits that people have an active and reflexive role in shaping, negotiating and changing their own beliefs and practices. This article examines the implications of the ‘lived religion’ approach for secular feminist analyses of religion in Western contexts. It starts out by proposing three different secular feminist positions on religion: a hard, a mixed hard and soft, and a soft position. The article then examines the views on women and religion forwarded by some high-profile feminist organisations in Europe, and how these relate to the three proposed secular feminist positions on religion. Finally, the article assesses which secular feminist position is most compatible with a ‘lived religion’ approach.

This is a review of a book chapter : Dave Elder-Vass, Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2016; 270 pp. ISBN: 97813165093. This paper was accepted for publication in the journal The Sociological Review and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2F0038026117701340

In this excellent book, Rolandsen Augustin examines processes of institutionalization and mobilization related to gender equality policies at the European level. Through the analysis of institution...

The concept of ‘religious citizenship’ is increasingly being used by scholars, but there are few attempts at defining it. This article argues that rights-based definitions giving primacy to status and rights are too narrow, and that feminist approaches to citizenship foregrounding identity, belonging and participation, as well as an ethic of care, provide a more comprehensive understanding of how religious women understand and experience their own ‘religious citizenship’. Findings from interviews with Christian and Muslim women in Oslo and Leicester suggest a close relationship between religious women's faith and practice (‘lived religion’) and their ‘lived citizenship’. However, gender inequalities and status differences between majority and minority religions produce challenges to rights-based approaches to religious citizenship.

In the risk society thesis, most notably forwarded by Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, the labour market plays a key role in individualization processes. While for previous generations, family and personal networks, and also government institutions, were important in providing access to and mobility within the labour market, cohorts entering the labour market since the 1970s and onwards are perceived to be living in a modern ‘risk regime’, requiring each individual to make choices and decisions in relation to a market that no longer accommodates employment based on kinship and friendship. Based on data from 58 qualitative interviews with parents and their adult children, this article examines more closely these purported changes. The study’s main observation is that important changes towards increased perceived individualization have taken place from one generation to the next. While affirming the disjuncture posited by Beck between a ‘collectivized past’ and an ‘individualized present’, this study’s empirical evidence from two generations of individuals indicates that the disjuncture is muddier and more complex than previously understood.

The focus of this themed section is on identifying gaps in anti-poverty policy towards children and young people. The idea to address this question originated at the conference ‘A Fairer Society? A Review of Policies for Vulnerable Groups’ organised by the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough University in September 2006. The section offers a combination of papers from the conference (Bradshaw and Richardson; Smith; Sutton) and papers commissioned specifically to deal with gaps in anti-poverty policy towards children and young people (Lloyd; France; Phung). An overview of some useful sources has also been included (Davis and Sandu).

This article analyses the increasing participation of Muslim women in mosques in Norway in light of current discourses on citizenship, gender and migration. It discusses how various processes in the mosques can be interpreted as contradictory and complex by sometimes increasing the participation of women and promoting liberation, while at other times constraining women'ss activities through various forms of discipline and control. Women are vital for the building of religious institutions among Muslim immigrant communities, and they are slowly achieving more space in such institutions. They are also being included in new forms of participation in some mosques. Recently, some Muslim women in Norway have made public calls for the reinterpretation of the Qur'an in ways that are more inclusive towards women. Despite pressures from both within and outside the mosques, however, Muslim congregations in Norway can still be described as patriarchal gender regimes where the participation and citi- zenship of women depends on the willingness of men to include them.

This article analyses the extent to which immigrant associations in Norway engage in collective cultural and political mobilisation and play a role in the political system. Immigrant associations are generally perceived as being concerned with the development of a common cultural heritage and belonging (cultural mobilisation). Immigrant associations can also be allocated a political role, as participation in them is thought to increase both electoral and other forms of political participation. This article's concern is with the degree to which immigrant associations themselves engage in the political process, rather than with the effects of associational life on individual political participation. The political opportunity structure model is used to understand the collective participation of immigrant associations in political processes. The assumption that involvement in immigrant associations may open up opportunities for collective political participation underlies both current public policy thinking i...

We started this book by asking whether and how religion is a resource and a barrier to women’s citizenship, perceived by religious women themselves and also by us as academic feminists. In our view, the feminist concern that women are drawn to religious traditions and institutions that practise gender inequality must be addressed via careful and contextual studies that involve the voices of religious women themselves. Do religious women comply with, resist or subvert gender inequalities within their own communities? How, and why? The raising of such questions suggests a focus on religious women’s agency and submission and on gender equality and women’s rights. In this book we have discussed whether and how religion is a resource and a barrier to women’s citizenship through an exploration of how Christian and Muslim women in Europe live their faith in everyday life (Chapter 3), how they perceive and practise citizenship (Chapter 4) and how they view and relate to gender equality (Chapter 5) and to women’s movements and feminism (Chapter 6). The questions we posed were: What do women of religious faith think about citizenship, and how they practise citizenship in their everyday life? What is the importance of faith in their lives, and how is religion bound up with other identities such as gender and nationality? How do religious women conceptualize ‘gender equality’, and what do they think about women’s movements and about feminism? We addressed these questions through the lenses of religious women’s lived citizenship, their lived religion and gender.

Identities, the personal and inter-subjective experiences of who we ‘are’, result from a complex interplay of multilevel processes. Identities are influenced but not determined by social location and power dynamics; they are shaped and reshaped by subjects who are subjected to social norms and structures and who are also able to reason, to desire and to act. The social construction of individual and group identities is always a ‘work in progress’, a continuous project of affirmation and reaffirmation, as well as contestation and change. In this chapter, we outline the notion of identity and examine how the interviewed Christian and Muslim women in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom talk about their own identities in relation to marriage, motherhood and family, work and education, nationality, citizenship and, of course, religion.

What do religious women think about women’s movements?1 What does feminism mean to them? How do they see women’s position within their own faith and religious tradition, and how do they perceive feminist efforts to improve women’s rights? Rather than neglecting the role of faith in women’s lives, as mainstream feminism has had a tendency to do, this book is a contribution to making women of faith visible. Based on our comparative empirical research, we seek to address the relationship between faith and feminism and to illuminate some of the paradoxes and ambiguities involved.

What do women of religious faith think about citizenship, and how do they practise citizenship in their everyday life? What is the importance of faith in their lives, and how is religion bound up with other identities such as gender and nationality? How do religious women conceptualize ‘gender equality’, and what do they think about women’s movements and feminism? We address these questions through an examination of religious women’s lived citizenship, their lived religion and gender relations. For feminist scholarship, it seems a puzzle that women are drawn to religious traditions and institutions that practise female subordination (Mahmood 2005: 6). How can we understand this from the point of view of religious women themselves? Do religious women comply with, resist or subvert gender inequalities within their own communities? Through their participation in churches and mosques in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, the Christian and Muslim women in our study have chosen to identify with and belong to local religious communities.1 Some of them would like to see greater gender equality and more opportunities for women within their faiths, while others accept, or even support, existing inequalities. Mainstream women’s and feminist movements, as well as feminist theory, have tended to marginalize religion, despite the crucial historical role played by religious women in bettering women’s position in the home and in society (Braude 2004), as well as their internal struggle for gender equality within their own religious contexts.

With overall trends towards increasing secular beliefs and more gender-equal relations and practices in contemporary Europe, how can it be that so many European women continue to adhere to religious faiths and doctrines that support the equal value of women and men yet also support gender inequality? This issue is complex, not the least because neither ‘religious’ nor ‘secular’ and neither ‘equal’ nor ‘equality’ are straightforward terms. Instead, they are being read, understood and practised in many different ways. Moreover, women have ambivalent and contradictory relations to religious institutions and authorities. They may choose to accept and submit to some religious prescriptions and practices, while contesting or rejecting others. As Casanova (2009: 17) has argued, ‘the religious politics of gender has become one of the most important issues facing humanity worldwide’, and it is therefore urgent to address how religious women themselves live and practise religion, gender relations and citizenship. This chapter situates our empirical study of Christian and Muslim women in Europe in relation to relevant theoretical perspectives, concepts and empirical works in the sociology of religion, women’s and feminist studies, and citizenship studies. It forges links between contemporary scholarly debates on religion and secularization, gender and secularization, institutional and everyday forms of religion, the role of agency and structure in the analysis of gender and religion, different feminist approaches to religion, feminist theory’s contributions to citizenship theory, and, finally, the conceptualization of religious citizenship.

This article explores variation in how immigrant Muslim women in Oslo, Norway, interpret and practice gender relations within the framework of Islam. Religion, family, and work are important sites for the formation, negotiation, and change of gender relations. The article therefore discusses the views and experiences of immigrant Muslim women concerning wife-husband relations and participation in the labor market. Four analytical types of views toward gender relations are introduced, and the variation in gender practices and views found among Muslim women in Oslo is discussed in relation to these types. The analysis suggests that immigrant Muslim women use Islam as a flexible resource for interpreting gender relations. It also shows that while women generally uphold a religious ideal of complementary gender roles, their actual practice often contradicts with and contests this ideal.

The article uses the case of a major state‐sponsored cultural policy institution in Sweden, the Foundation Culture of the Future (Stiftelsen framtidens kultur), to show how tension between institutional autonomy and state dependence can be dealt with creatively by foundations seeking both autonomy and legitimacy from the state and other actors. The article argues that that the Foundation (FCF) has developed its operations within a field of tension between the patron and architect models of state cultural policy. These models reflect the tension between institutional autonomy and state dependence. Through the application of a strategy of “self‐governed dependence”, the FCF has chosen a “third way”, and has been able to establish itself as a major actor on the cultural policy arena, and to secure support and legitimacy from both national cultural policy makers and those who compete for funding opportunities provided by the FCF.

This article is closed access, it was published in the serial, Scandinavian Journal of History [© Taylor and Francis]. The definitive version is available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03468750310001598

Synopsis Women’s movements participate in a multitude of interactional spaces, some of which are created by governmental institutions, and some of which are created by civil society actors including women’s organizations themselves. The reflections on these spaces that follow arise from empirical research conducted within the FEMCIT project. Our research investigated relations between ethnic majority and minority women’s movement organizations in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, with a particular view to whether such organizations engage in mutual dialogue, cooperation and political claims-making, as well as how they work to influence public policy. The focus of this piece is on the importance of space, place and nation at theoretical, normative, and empirical levels in women’s movement research, and on processes of inclusion and exclusion linked to the multitude of spaces in which women’s movements participate.

This article presents evidence of direct links between the women's missionary movement and the feminist movement in early 20th-century Norway. Through the creation of the organization Misjonsarbeidernes Ring (MAR), missionary women sought allies and influence in the feminist movement both at home and abroad. The establishment of MAR, however, met with opposition from men in the leadership of the Norwegian Lutheran Missionary Society, with which the women's missionary movement in Norway was associated, from missionary women themselves, and from the feminist movement. The membership of MAR did not reach impressive numeric size, but the organization was an important development in the religious arena in Norway. Through their efforts to establish links between the women's missionary movement and the feminist movement, missionary women promoted the idea that religious women could have feminist interests.