Updates

Free online course on Religion and Sexual Wellbeing

The project team of ‘Religion, Sexuality and Secularism’ has been working hard to develop a freely accessible 4-week internet course: ‘Religion and Sexual Wellbeing: Pleasure, Piety and Reproductive Rights’, starting on 2 May. Debates featuring sexuality, gender, and reproduction often showcase two clear voices: conservative voices often associated with religion, and liberal voices often associated […]

‘In pursuit of well-being’

b.e.bartelink@rug.nl / /

Cultural Encounters Team Member Amisah Bakuri will defend her PhD thesis at the University of Amsterdam on December 22nd 2021. Her PhD thesis is an anthropological study focused on the pursuit of well-being among Somali-Dutch and Ghanaian-Dutch people residing in the Randstad area of the Netherlands In The Netherlands (and in global public health), religion is often […]

Sexual Enchantment: experiences of the ordinary and the extraordinary

What makes sex something extraordinary for people, and how do people experience the extraordinary amidst the familiair and the everyday? How is this connected to peoples experiences of the transcendent? These questions were taken up by members of our project team. Following the initiative of Jelle Wiering,  we presented our insights from the Cultural Encounters […]

Labour of love: Secrecy and kinship among Ghanaian-Dutch and Somali-Dutch in The Netherlands

b.e.bartelink@rug.nl /

Credits: Gabriela Bustamante  How do secrets play a role in the intimate relations between mothers and daughters or between marriage partners? And how to understand secrecy in relation to love and intimacy? Amisah Bakuri and Rachel Spronk , in  a paper they co-author with Rijk van Dijk, explore how people negotiate moral expectations regarding sexuality, respect, and […]

Embodied stories: African-Dutch women narrate (in)visibility and agency in the city of The Hague

b.e.bartelink@rug.nl /

 Inspired by her work in the Cultural Encounters project, team member Brenda Bartelink started a side project in 2018/2019. In her research on religious leaders she engaged with churches from the perspective of leadership, which is often – though not always- a male perspective and informed by the ideal type role models religious leaders want […]

‘Sex education in the Netherlands is too one-sided’

b.e.bartelink@rug.nl / /

Cultural Encounters Team Member Jelle Wiering will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 8 September. His PhD thesis analyses sexuality education in The Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the subjects of religion and sexuality are often considered to be incompatible. PhD student Jelle Wiering is contesting the tendency to automatically assign the […]

Pentecostal Approaches to Governance and Security.

b.e.bartelink@rug.nl / / /

Brenda Bartelink wrote a report for the Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy (TPNRD) in which she translates the insights from the Cultural Encounters project to inform diplomats and people working in international relations. The rapid growth of Pentecostalism is having a significant impact on individuals, communities, and indeed entire nations—especially in Africa and […]

Pentecostalism and the Coronavirus: “Wash Your Hands and Be Washed in the Blood of the Lamb”

k.e.knibbe@rug.nl / / /

How do Pentecostal churches deal with the restrictions put in place to ‘flatten the curve’ of the coronavirus infection rates, what is their take on the pandemic and how does this relate to the public health and other concerns that the pandemic raises? An analysis of the sermon of the leader of the Redeemed Christian […]