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Active Citizenship in Culturally and Religiously Diverse Societies (ACT)

Led by Cindy Horst
Jun 2014 - Dec 2018

In debates on citizenship in Europe, the need for active participation among citizens is increasingly stressed. But do normative ideas of what active citizenship is reflect people's lived experiences in present-day Europe? How is increased diversity affecting the ways in which people engage in their neighbourhoods? Does diversity entail less trust, greater distance between people and less participation, or do new forms of mobilization develop?

In Europe's culturally and religiously diverse societies, citizens have different frameworks for how they act and interact with their close and distant surroundings. We argue that this increasing diversity leads to diversified citizen participation that must be studied if the current participation agenda is to remain relevant. The ACT project will study active citizenship in culturally and religiously diverse societies through an analysis of present-day civic 1) motivations; 2) locations; and 3) contestations.

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PhD Thesis

Jdid, Noor (2021) "Taking part in society the way I am" An exploration of active citizenship norms in Denmark and Norway. PhD thesis, Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK), University of Bergen, Bergen.

Peer-reviewed Journal Article

Horst, Cindy & Odin Lysaker (2021) Miracles in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt and Refugees as ‘Vanguard’, Journal of Refugee Studies 34(1): 67–84.

Horst, Cindy & Tore Vincents Olsen (2021) Transnational Citizens, Cosmopolitan Outlooks? Migration as a Route to Cosmopolitanism, Nordic Journal of Migration Research 11(1): 4–19.

Horst, Cindy; Marta Bivand Erdal & Noor Jdid (2020) The “good citizen”: asserting and contesting norms of participation and belonging in Oslo, Ethnic and Racial Studies 43(16): 76–95.

Geha, Carmen & Cindy Horst (2019) Exporting 'active citizenship': foreign support for citizenship education in the Arab world, Citizenship Studies 23(5): 486–501.

Horst, Cindy (2018) Making a difference in Mogadishu? Experiences of multi-sited embeddedness among diaspora youth, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44(8): 1341–1356.

Jakobsen, Jonas (2015) Secularism, Liberal Democracy, and Islam in Europe: A Habermasian Critique of Talal Asad, Contrastes (Málaga)(20): 113–125.

Fjørtoft, Kjersti (2015) Rettferdighet som deltakelse på like vilkår [Justice as participation on equal terms], Agora: Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon 32(2): 22–39.

Book Chapter

Horst, Cindy (2019) Refugees, Peacebuilding, and the Anthropology of the Good, in Bradley, Megan; James Milner; & Blair Peruniak, eds, Refugees' Roles in Resolving Displacement and Building Peace: Beyond Beneficiaries. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press (39–54).

Borchgrevink, Kaja & Marta Bivand Erdal (2017) The Circulation of Transnational Islamic Charity, in Nowicka, Magdalena; & Vojin Šerbedžija, eds, Migration and Social Remittances in a Global Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (259–280).

Al-Sharmani, Mulki & Cindy Horst (2016) Marginal actors? Diaspora Somalis Negotiate Their Citizenship, in Ahponen, Pirkkoliisa; Päivi Harinen; & Ville-Samuli Haverinen, eds, Dislocations of Civic Cultural Borderlines: Methodological Nationalism, Transnational Reality and Cosmopolitan Dreams. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing (107–122).

Erdal, Marta Bivand (2016) Innenfra, utenfra og tredjeposisjoner? Refleksiv posisjonalitet i forskning blant katolikker i Norge [Insider, outsider or third positions? Reflexive positionality in research among Catholics in Norway], in Aschim, Anders; Olav Hovdelien; & Helje Kringlebotn Sødal, eds, Kristne migranter i Norden [Christian migrants in the Nordic countries]. Kristiansand: Portal.

Erdal, Marta Bivand (2016) When Poland became the main country of birth among Catholics in Norway’: Exploring the interface of Polish migrants’ everyday narratives and Church responses to a rapid demographic re-constitution, in Pasura, Dominic; & Marta Bivand Erdal, eds, Migration, Transnationalism and Catholicism: Global Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pasura, Dominic & Marta Bivand Erdal (2016) Introduction: Migration, Transnationalism and Catholicism, in Pasura, Dominic; & Marta Bivand Erdal, eds, Migration, Transnationalism and Catholicism: Global Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jakobsen, Jonas (2015) Contextualising Religious Pain: Saba Mahmood, Axel Honneth, and the Danish Cartoons, in Jakobsen, Jonas; & Odin Lysaker, eds, Recognition and Freedom: Axel Honneth's Political Thought. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers (169–192).

Edited Volume

Pasura, Dominic; & Marta Bivand Erdal, eds, (2016) Migration, Transnationalism and Catholicism: Global Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Mouritsen, Per (ed.) (2015) En plads i verden: Det moderne medborgerskab. København : Gyldendal.

PRIO Report

Horst, Cindy; Marta Bivand Erdal; Kjersti Fjørtoft; Jonas Jakobsen; Noor Jdid; Per Mouritsen; & Tore Vincents Olsen (2019) Active Citizenship Today, PRIO Project Summary. Oslo: PRIO.