Abstract
This chapter explores empathy and embodiment as an approach to ritual practices that opens a dynamic space, which can capture senses of identity, well-being, and healing. The exploration is based on two ethnographic fieldworks in Norway: one among re-settled Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka and the other among asylum-seekers from various countries living in reception centers. I underscore rituals as a process that heightens the bodily and sensory aspects of experience, and discuss a phenomenological approach in which the body cannot be separated from emotions, as emotions must be understood by taking into account the whole “being-in-the-world” of a person. It appears how rituals can bring together migrants and locals in one social frame, from which human recognition can stem.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The project was granted seed funding by the University Hospital of Northern Norway (1996–1999) and a four-year Fellowship at Norwegian University og Technology and Science (1999–2003).
- 2.
The project “What Buildings Do: The Effect of the Physical Environment on Quality of Life of Asylum Seekers” was funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) for the period 2011–2016. It was led by the Faculty of Architecture and Fine Arts, NTNU. Other partners were SINTEF Building and Infrastructure and Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer.
- 3.
As part of a policy to reduce the large increase in the number of asylum-seekers during 2015, with 31,125 individuals coming mostly from Syria and Afghanistan (Garvik 2018), the government implemented one of Europe’s strictest refugee policies. In 2014, the number of asylum applications was 11,480 and the last year to maximize applications was 2002, with 17,480 applications. To reduce the expected number of asylum-seekers, the government launched a proposal for a new law on 21 November 2015) providing for asylum-seekers with no obvious need for protection to be sent out of the country immediately without able to make an asylum application. Moreover, legitimate detention of asylum-seekers up to seven days was authorized with a view to returning them back to a safe third country, with the exception of single minors and families with children. To reduce the increasing costs and make it less attractive to apply for asylum in Norway, the government announced several reductions and cuts in services and economic support, along with stricter rules for family reunification. The policy proved effective, as in 2016 only 3460 asylum-seekers arrived in Norway, followed by 3546 in 2017. However, the decrease in numbers was mainly due to stricter border controls being imposed by Norway’s neighbours and the rest of Europe (Garvik 2018).
- 4.
In December 2014 there were 14,814 residents in Norwegian asylum reception centres. See http://www.udi.no/statistikk-og-analyse/statistikk/mottaksbefolkning-antall-beboere-i-mottak-etter-statsborgerskap-og-alder-2014/.
- 5.
In Norwegian the term “Nøkternt men forsvarlig” is used. We have chosen to translate “forsvarlig” as “reasonable”, although this is not a fully adequate term. Forsvarlig means not only reasonable, understood as proper, sound and safe, but has also the connotations of dignity and decency.
- 6.
The inhabitants of Finnmarksvidda are mostly indigenous Sami who traditionally make a living as reindeer (caribou) herders. Along the coast there is a more mixed population consisting of Sami living from fishing and reindeer-keeping and non-Sami Norwegian inhabitants.
- 7.
Parvati is the Hindu goddess of fertility, love, beauty, marriage, children and devotion, as well as of divine strength and power (Kinsley 1988). Known by many other names, she is the gentle and nurturing aspect of the Supreme Hindu goddess Adi Parashakti (Shivashakti) and one of the central deities of the Goddess-oriented Shakta sect. She is the Mother goddess in Hinduism, and has many attributes and aspects (Gross 1978). Each of her aspects is expressed with a different name, giving her over a hundred names in regional Hindu stories of India. Along with Lakshmi and Saraswati, she forms the trinity of Hindu goddesses (Tridevi).
- 8.
Puja is a Hindu ritual that many Hindus and Buddhists practice in their homes. It is a kind of offering commonly practiced in the early morning. To do puja one has to wash and clean oneself; women shower, and family members wash and remove their shoes.
References
Bell, Cathrine. 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Berg, Berit. 2012. “Mottakssystemet – historikk og utviklingstrender.” In Asylsøker – i velferdsstatens venterom [Reception System—History and Development Trends. In Asylum seeker: In the welfare State’s Waiting Room], edited by Marko Valenta and Berit Berg, 17 − 34. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Daniel, E.Valentine. 1996. Charred Lullabies: Chapters in and Anthropology of Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Daniel, Valentine, and John Chr. Knudsen, eds. 1995. Mistrusting Refugees. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Das, Veena. 2007. Life and World: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Desjarlais, Robert, Leon Eisenberg, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman. 1995. World Mental Health: Problems and Priorities in Low-Income Countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fuglerud, Øivind. 1999. Life on the Outside: The Tamil Diaspora and Long Distance Nationalism. London: Pluto Press.
Garvik, Olav. 2018. The Asylum Situation in Norway 2015 and 2016. In The Great Norwegian Encyclopedia [Asylsituasjonen I Norge 2015 and 2016. I: Store norske leksikon.] https://snl.no/asylsituasjonen_i_Norge_2015_og_2016. Retrieved 31st January 2019.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid. 2010. Lost Selves and Lonely Persons: Experiences of Illness and Well-Being Among Tamil Refugees in Norway. Carolina: Carolina Academic Press.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid. 2012. “Moving Tamils, Moving Amulets: Creating Self-Identity, Belonging and Emotional Well-Being.” In Moving Subjects, Moving Objects: Transnationalism, Cultural Production and Emotions, edited by Maruška Svašek, 117–136. London: Berghahn Books.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid. 2014. “Experiences of Pain: A Gateway to Cosmopolitan Subjectivity.” In We the Cosmopolitans: Moral and Existential Conditions of Being Human, edited by Lisette Josephides and Alex Hall, 90–111. London: Berghahn Books.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid. 2015. “Embodiment, Performance and Healing.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Anthropology, edited by Pamela Stewart and Andrew Strathern, 33–53. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid. 2017a. “Migrating Rituals: Negotiations of Otherness among Tamils in Norway.” In Special Issue, The Rituals of Migration, edited by Marianne Holm Pedersen and Mikkel Rytter. JEMS (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies) 44 (16): 2617–2633.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid. 2017b. “Empathic Relations with Tamil Refugees: Challenging Morality and Calling for Ethics of Knowledge Creation.” In The Ethics of Knowledge Creation: Transactions, Relations and Persons, edited by Lisette Josephides and Anne Sigfrid Grønseth, 29–49. London and New York: Berghahn Books.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid. 2021. Modes and Values of Knowledge: Relations and Mobilities in Asylum Seekers’ Experiences of Wellbeing and Suffering in Norway. In Mobilities of Wellbeing: Migration, the State, and Medical Knowledge, edited by Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid and Jonathan Skinner, 253–285. Carolina: Carolina Academic Press. Series: Ethnographic Studies in Medical Anthropology.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid, and Dona Lee Davis, eds. 2010. Mutuality and Empathy: Self and Other in the Ethnographic Encounter. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing.
Grønseth, Anne Sigfrid, and Jonathan Skinner, eds. 2021. Mobilities of Wellbeing: Migration, the State, and Medical Knowledge. Carolina: Carolina Academic Press. Series: Ethnographic Studies in Medical Anthropology.
Gross, Rita M. 1978. “Hindu Female Deities as a Resource for the Contemporary Rediscovery of the Goddess.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 46 (3) (September): 269–291.
Hammond, Laura. 2004. This Place Will Become Home: Refugee Repatriation to Ethiopia. Cornell: Cornell University Press.
Hauge, Åshild Lappegard, Karine Denizou, and Eli Støa. 2015. Housing Quality in Norwegian Asylum Seeker Reception Centres: Case Studies [Bokvalitet på norske asylmottak: Casestudier]. SINTEF fag 29, Oslo: SINTEF akademisk forlag.
Hauge, Åshild Lappegard, Eli Støa, and Karine Denizou. 2017. “Framing Outsidedness: Aspects of Housing Quality in Decentralized Reception Centres for Asylum Seekers in Norway.” Housing, Theory and Society 34 (1): 1–20.
Hinton, Alexander. 2005. Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hollan, Douglas W., and Jason C. Throop, eds. 2011. The Anthropology of Empathy: Experiencing the Lives of Others in Pacific Societies. London: Berghahn Books.
Ingold, Tim. 1993. “The Art of Translation in a Continuous World.” In Beyond Boundaries: Understanding, Translation and Anthropological Discourse, edited by Gisli Pàlsson. Oxford: Berg.
Jackson, Michael. 1989. Paths Toward a Clearing: Radical Empiricism and Ethnographic Inquiry. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Jackson, Michael. 2011. Life Within Limits: Well-Being in a World of Want. London: Duke UniversityPress.
Jenkins, Janis. 1996. “The Impress of Extremity: Women’s Experience of Trauma and Political Violence.” In Gender and Health: An International Perspective, edited by Carol Sargent and Caroline Brettell. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Josephides, Lisette, and Anne Sigfrid Grønseth (eds.). 2017. The Ethics of Knowledge Creation: Transactions, Relations and Persons. London and New York: Berghahn Books.
Kapferer, Bruce. 2004. “Ritual Dynamics and Virtual Practices: Beyond Representation and Meaning.” In Ritual in Its Own Right, edited by Don Handelman and Galina Linquist, 35–54. New York: Berghahn Books.
Kapferer, Bruce. 2010. “Introduction: In the Event—Toward an Anthropology of Generic Moments.” Social Analysis 54 (3): 1–27.
Kinsley, David. 1988. Hindu Goddesses: Vision of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Traditions, 55–64. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kissoon, Priya. 2010. “From Persecution to Destitution: A Snapshot of Asylum Seekers’ Housing and Settlement Experiences in Canada and the United Kingdom.” Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 8: 4–31.
Kleinman, Arthurs, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock, eds. 1997. Social Suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lauritsen, Kirsten, and Berit Berg. 1999. Mellom håp og lengsel – å leve i asylmottak [Between Hope and Longing: To Live in an Asylum-Seeker Reception Centre] Trondheim: SINTEF.
Leavitt, John. 1996. “Meaning and Feeling in the Anthropology of Emotions.” American Ethnologist 23 (3): 514–539.
Levitt, Peggy. 2003. “‘You Know, Abraham was Really the First Immigrant’: Religion and Transnational Migration.” IMR International Migration Review 37 (3): 847–873.
Levitt, Peggy. 1999. “Social Remittances: A Local-Level, Migration-Driven Form of Cultural Diffusion.” International Migration Review 32 (4): 926–949.
Löfgren, Orvar. 1993. “The Great Christmas Quarrel and other Swedish Traditions.” In Unwrapping Christmas, edited by Daniel Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Malkki, Liisa. 1995. “Refugees and Exile: From ‘Refugee Studies’ to the National Order of Things.” Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 495–523.
Migliorino, Nicola. 2008. (Re)constructing Armenia in Lebanon and Syria: Ethno-cultural Diversity and the State in the Aftermath of a Refugee Crisis. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Milton, Kay. 2002. Loving Nature: Towards an Ecology of Emotion. London: Routledge.
Levitt, Peggy, and Nina Glick Schiller. 2004. “Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society.” The International Migration Review 38 (3): 1002–1039.
NOU 2011. I velferdsstatens venterom. Mottakstilbudet for asylsøkere [In the Welfare State’s Waitingroom: Reception Centres for Norway] Norges offentlige utredninger Norwegain Official Papers. Oslo: Departementenes servicesenter informasjonsforvaltning.
Rancière, Jacques. 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London: Continuum.
Samuel, Geoffrey. 2010. Healing, Efficacy, and the Spirits. Journal of Ritual Studies 24 (2): 7–20.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday life in Brazil. Berkelely: California University Press.
Schneider, Arnd. 2006. “Appropriations.” In Contemporary Art and Anthropology, edited by Arnd Schneider and C. Wright. Oxford: Berg.
Sideris, Tina. 2003. “War, Gender and Culture: Mozambican Women Refugees.” Social Science & Medicine 56 (4): 713–724.
Sjørslev, Inger. 2007. “Ritual, Performance og socialitet. En introduktion” [Ritual, Performance and Sociality. An Introduction.” In Scener for samvær. Ritualer, performance og socialitet [Scenes of Togetherness: Ritual, Performance and Sociality], edited by I. Sjørslev. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Statistics Norway, 2020 May 13. Persons with Refugee Background. https://www.ssb.no/en/befolkning/statistikker/flyktninger. Retrieved June 2020.
Statistics Norway, 2020, table 05814. Immigrants, by Sex and Country Background 1979–2020. https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/05184/. Retrieved June 2020.
Statistics Norway, table 08376. Persons with Refugee Background, by Age and Groups of Country Background 2010–2020. https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/08376. Retrieved June 2020.
Statistics Norway, table 09817. Immigrants and Norwegian-Born to Immigrant Parents, by Immigration Category, Country Background and Percentages of the Population (M) 2010–2020. Retrieved June 2020.
Stewart, Pamela, and Andrew Strathern. 2014. Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion. London and New York: Bloomsbury.
Strumse, Einar, Anne Sigfrid Grønseth, and Eli Støa. 2016. Fysiske omgivelsers virkning på trivsel og konfliktnivå: Spørreundersøkelse om bofholhold på asylmottak i Norge. [The Effects of Physical Environment on Well-Being and Level of Conflict: Web-Survey on Housing Quality of Asylum Seeker Reception Centres in Norway.]. Research Report no 170/2016. Lillehammer: Lillehammer University College.
Svašek, Maruška, and Zlatku Skrbiš. 2004. “Passions and Powers: Emotions and Globalisation.” Identities (4): 367–383.
The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI). 2020. Statistics and Analysis. https://www.udi.no/en/statistics-and-analysis/. Retrieved Juni 2020.
Wikan, Unni. 1992. “Beyond the Words: The Power of Resonance.” American Ethnologist 19 (3): 460–482.
Zmegac, Jasna Capo. 2007. Strangers Either Way: The Lives of Croatian Refugees in Their New Home. London: Berghahn Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Grønseth, A.S. (2021). Empathy and Ritual Practices. In: Stewart, P.J., Strathern, A.J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Anthropological Ritual Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76825-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76825-6_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76824-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76825-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)