Kaia Rønsdal combines the perspective of production of space, ethical theory and fieldwork, focusing on the contradictions in lived space, by observing encounters and interactions between different groups of people in everyday public space. It is an interdisciplinary contribution to the science of diaconia. The interest lies with the lives that diaconia traditionally have been concerned with and the spaces where these lives are lived, exploring the concept of calling through narratives of these lives and spaces. The book challenges and contributes to traditional and contemporary notions of calling as it is understood in the Scandinavian tradition. These notions, stemming from interpretations of Luther, place the calling among humans, as opposed to it being something exclusively divine and ecclesiastical. The discussion on the calling is enriched with concepts stemming from French sociology and human geography, primarily from H. Lefebvre and M. Foucault, as well as phenomenological contributions. These are concerned with the significance of body, space, urbanity, and spatial interpretation as space is a relational, formative phenomenon constituted in practice and interaction. Through methodologies developed from phenomenology and spatial theory, where the researcher subject is an evident embodied participant, detailed accounts from the field form the material, describing everyday life in an Oslo cityscape. From this material, the concept of calling is explored, developing the discussion from the perspective of the spaces of others. The assumption being that it is in the spaces where people meet and bodies respond to other bodies, whether marginalised or not, that calling may manifest itself. Through spatial analysis of the minute details of bodies and socialities in everyday life, new material for ethical considerations is explored. The analysis and discussion may enrich and further deepen the understanding of what takes place in public spaces, recognising them as a source of knowledge in a range of disciplines. These everyday encounters may also be described and analysed as contributions to the development of theory and praxis of diaconia.

This book explores the kinds of Christian service or diaconia that develop in non-institutionalized practices for supporting survivors of indigenous ritual servitude or Trokosi in Africa. Drawing on empirical research from Ghana, it examines the possibilities of freedom, equality, and dignity for liberated Trokosi and the manner in which these women’s experiences constitute a repudiation of dominant patriarchal family systems. With close attention to the work of indigenous parachurches – which function outside of institutionalized churches – in challenging the contemporary practice of ritual slavery and offering its survivors a lived space in which they need not remain “hidden” as they seek restoration and integration into wider society, Ritual Servitudes and Christian Social Practices in Ghana will appeal to scholars of sociology, theology, and religion with interests in gender, contemporary ministries and African religion.

In the present situation in the world, values of tolerance, compassion and hospitality appear to be more contested. The debates among European leaders have come to center around how to "protect us" from refugees, rather than protecting the precarious lives of the refugees.The authors agree that we should not stop looking for practices of hospitality. We need to better understand what hospitality is, where it is practiced and also why it is practiced. Hospitality is not necessarily something we possess as an inner quality or as something disconnected from others. Rather it is practiced in specific ways in in particular spaces. The thesis is that we have to look for the characteristics of hospitality in "the other spaces" that Michel Foucault once called heterotopias.Five specific cases are analyzed: - a monastic garden for interreligious dialogue in Austria, a Lutheran congregation that accommodates a project for undocumented migrants in Western Sweden, a busy intersection in downtown Oslo where substance-users stay (and most others pass by), a voluntary organization that works for the creation of alternative life forms in inner city Copenhagen, and, finally, some aspects of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City.The authors are theologians, sociologists and a PhD candidate in diaconia, an illustration of the interdisciplinary composition of the book.

Listening according to mood is likely to be what most people do when they listen to music. We want to take part in, or even be part of, the emerging world of the musical work. Using the sources of musical history and philosophy, Erik Wallrup explores this extremely vague and elusive phenomenon, which is held to be fundamental to musical hearing. Wallrup unfolds the untold musical history of the German word for ’mood’, Stimmung, which in the 19th century was abundant in the musical aesthetics of the German-Austrian sphere. Martin Heidegger’s much-discussed philosophy of Stimmung is introduced into the field of music, allowing Wallrup to realise fully the potential of the concept. Mood in music, or, to be more precise, musical attunement, should not be seen as a peculiar kind of emotionality, but that which constitutes fundamentally the relationship between listener and music. Exploring mood, or attunement, is indispensable for a thorough understanding of the act of listening to music.

The Sense of Space brings together space and body to show that space is a plastic environment, charged with meaning, that reflects the distinctive character of human embodiment in the full range of its moving, perceptual, emotional, expressive, developmental, and social capacities. Drawing on the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Bergson, as well as contemporary psychology to develop a renewed account of the moving, perceiving body, the book suggests that our sense of space ultimately reflects our ethical relations to other people and to the places we inhabit.

This book reconstructs the connection between religion and migration, drawing on post-colonial perspectives to shed light on what religion can contribute to migrant encounters. Examining the resources and motives for hospitality as lived in Christian contexts in the Nordic region, it addresses the content of talk about religion in public discourse, the concept having become something of an empty signifier in debates surrounding migration. Multidisciplinary in approach, this volume demonstrates that religion is not, in fact, an empty signifier, but gains substance through practice and interpretation. Considering the undeveloped potentiality of religion and the manner in which the unseen religious perspective in secularity becomes manifest in practice, this volume will appeal to social scientists and scholars of religion with interests in migration, refugee studies, theology, and Christian practice.

Science shows that nearly every corner of our planet is toxic, and that all people carry residues of dozens of chemicals in their cells. Our body, our home, and our world are steadily sickening us every day of our lives. But we don't have to live in a poisoned world, and we don't have to be sick. We can have a healthy living space again by detoxifying our body and home, ridding both of their burden. The key is to cleanse both at the same time. The Healthy Living Space is the first book that shows you how, and why, to detoxify your home and body together. In The Healthy Living Space health writer and alternative medicine journalist Richard Leviton gives 70 practical steps on how to use safe, proven, nontoxic, self-care methods drawn from the fields of natural and alternative medicine. The detoxifying steps are backed by science and easy to use/ they don't require expensive equipment or a doctor's supervision. They're effective and produce results and you can start them today. Whether the poisons are in your liver and intestines or in your carpets and drinking water, whether the problem is the shape of your bedroom or radon seeping into your basement, The Healthy Living Space will show you how to get the poisons out of your life and the health back into it.

This book offers an account of contemplative reflection in qualitative social research. Focusing on the experiences of the researcher – including sensory and emotional experiences – and the work of the mind in the investigative process, it considers the means by which the researcher’s basic assumptions can be analyzed and bracketed, so as to shed light on the process by which knowledge is produced. Through an exploration of the methods of meditation, auto-observation and self-reports, epoché, "contemplative memo-ing," and the contemplative diary, the author explores the essential role of subjectivity in qualitative research, providing inspiration for more mindful research. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, and geography with interests in phenomenology, research methods, and the role of the mind in the research process.

Liminal Spaces and Call for Praxis(ing) follows the theme of the Curriculum & Pedagogy conference that highlighted issues of power, privilege, and supremacy across timelines and borders. This volume comprises of an interconnected mosaic of theoretical research and praxis. Facing the current and future challenges of corporatization of education, it becomes imperative to identify and deconstruct elements that provide more responsive and fertile ground for a research and praxis based mosaic of pedagogy. This volume includes works of those scholars who identified or worked with communities of color and/or who drew on the activist and intellectual traditions of peoples of color, third world feminism, indigenous liberation/sovereignty, civil rights, and anticolonial movements.