Wenn Migranten religiös werden : die „Renaissance“ des Chassidismus und die Rolle der baalai teshuva am Beispiel von Chicago

Der Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der gegenwärtigen „Renaissance“ des Chassidismus in den USA. Am Beispiel der Chicagoer Synagogengemeinschaft Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe wird untersucht, welche Rolle dabei russisch-jüdische Migranten spielen, die zum Glauben “zurückkehren”. Inwiefern tragen die baalai teshuva zu einer Modernisierung des tradierten Normen- und insbesondere Sozialgefüges der chassidischen Gemeinschaft bei. Dies ist die zentrale Frage, der mittels ethnografischer Untersuchungsmethoden nachgegangen wird.The ethnographic article focuses on the current “renaissance” of Hasidism in the US. As an exemplary site of study serves the Chicago Congregation Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe. There, the article draws attention to the specific role of the recent Russian Jewish Migration for the Hasidic revival. As “returnees” to religion Russian Jews deceisively reshape traditional Hasidic social hierarchies and thus contribute to a modernization of current Hasidism in the US

Reading matters

The present book is a special gift for a special colleague and friend. Defined as an “Unfestschrift,” it gives colleagues, students, and friends of Regina Bendix an opportunity to express their esteem for Regina’s inspiration, cooperation, leader¬ship, and friendship in an adequate and lasting manner. The title of the present book, Reading Matters, is as close as possible to an English equivalent of the beautiful German double entendre Erlesenes (meaning both “something read/a reading” and “something exquisite”). Presenting “matters for reading,” the Unfestschrift unites short contributions about “readings” that “mattered” in some way or another for the contributors, readings that had an impact on their understanding of whatever they were at some time or presently are interested in. The term “readings” is understood widely. Since most of the invited contributors are academics, the term implies, in the first place, readings of an academic or scholarly nature. In a wider notion, however, “readings” also refer to any other piece of literature, the perception of a piece of art (a painting, a sculpture, a performance), listening to music, appreciating a “folkloric” performance or a fieldwork experience, or just anything else whose “reading” or individual perception has been meaningful for the contributors in different ways. Contrary to a strictly scholarly treatment of a given topic in which the author often disappears behind the subject, the presentations unveil and highlight the contributor’s personal involve¬ment, and thus a dimension of crucial importance for ethnographers such as the dedicatee

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Vom Feld verführt: methodische Gratwanderungen in der Ethnografie

Die Methode der ethnologischen Feldforschung wird in der gängigen Fachliteratur meist als ein beständiges Oszillieren der Forschenden zwischen emotionaler Nähe und kognitiver Distanz zu den Protagonist_innen im Feld beschrieben. Vor einer allzu großen Identifikation mit den 'Beforschten' werden gerade 'Anfänger_innen' und Studierende des Faches eindringlich gewarnt. Dies schmälere die Fähigkeit zur Selbstreflexion und zur wissenschaftlichen Analyse der gewonnenen Daten. Es ist jedoch augenfällig, dass genau jene Studien, in denen offensichtlich 'zu viel Nähe' zum Feld riskiert und die Feldforschung geradezu zu einem existenziellen Erlebnis wurde, fachlich oftmals Diskurs setzend werden. Wie, so wird im vorliegenden Text gefragt, wird diese methodische Grenzüberschreitung bzw. Gratwanderung von den jeweiligen Forscher_innen reflektiert und dabei konzeptionalisiert und so legitimiert. Drei aktuelle Ethnografien - aus dem Bereich der Hexenforschung und der Sportstudien - stehen im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung. Dabei wird u.a. der Fokus auf die neu formulierte Zugangsweise der method of compassion gerichtet und die Idee zu einer 'leiblichen Ethnografie' vorgestellt. Ziel ist es, eingefahrene Lehransätze zu hinterfragen und neuere Begrifflichkeiten und Ansätze für die Methodendiskussion fruchtbar zu machen, um so die kürzlich ausgerufene Renaissance der Ethnografie weiter voranzutreiben.Ethnographic fieldwork is commonly described as a way of gaining data whereby the researcher continually oscillates between being intensely engaged with the people in the "field" and remaining cognitively distant. Within this context, authors of methodological text books caution students and novices of ethnography against a kind of overidentification with the studied protagonists. Overidentification, they argue, diminishes the researcher's analytical competence as well as the capacity of self-reflection. Although this has widely been acknowledged as a methodological dictum, ethnographies of researchers who risked 'loosing distance' to 'the field' or even 'went native', often play key roles in shaping the academic discourse and understanding of the phenomenon under study. I trace how those researchers conceptionalized and thus legitimized their 'methodological transgressions'. The focus centers on three recent ethnographic studies of neo-pagan witchcraft and of pugilism. By discussing the method of compassion, the concept of the vulnerable observer and the idea of a carnal ethnography, my goal is to question long established and still taught theorems on fieldwork (particularly within the German speaking academic context) and to introduce new methodological debates, and to promote the recently proclaimed 'renaissance of ethnography'