Andreas Bandak
Associate Professor, Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies at University of Copenhagen
Links
Biography
My research focuses on Christianity as a lived religion. I have been particularly interested in Christianity in settings where it has not been the majority religion, but where it has had to occupy a different and less dominant position. I have studied figures of sainthood and the diverse relationships people hold towards religious authorities, and the interplay between orthodox and popular religion. Specialised in anthropological studies of Christianity, I have focused on the way religious practices have been working in an otherwise overtly secular Syrian state. Related to this focus on Christianity I have studied the new situation for Christians and Christianity in the Levant in light of the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, where I have worked on how prayer has been taken up as a way of coping or addressing the changed landscape of the Middle East.
Currently, I explore these themes in relation to three large, collective research projects, which I am leading.
I am PI on the collective research project Archiving the Future: Re-Collections of Syria in War and Peace, which explores Syrians ways to deal with the past and their attempts to enact viable futures. The research project is funded by the Independent Research Council Denmark's Sapere Aude Starting Grant scheme.
Future aspirations, both in the short and the long term, is also the focal point in the project Viable Futures: Near and Long Term Prospects among Syrian Youth in Jordan, which I lead as PI with Anders Hastrup as co-PI. The project explores specifically how Syrian youths in Jordan operate tactically and strategically in the fields of education, agriculture and urban life. The project is funded by The Novo Nordisk Foundation through the grogram Pathways to Youth Empowerment and Self-Reliance in Jordan.
In connection to these projects I am co-PI on the project The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Globalization, where Bjørn Thomassen is PI. The project researches Catholic practice in Denmark herein I explore Syrian and Lebanese Christians and their senses of belonging in a Danish and Global context. The project is funded by the Velux Foundation and hosted by Roskilde University.
Beyond these projects, my work has over years received funding in the form of grants from The Danish Council for Independent Research in the Humanities | Culture and Communication and from The Velux Foundation.
Keywords:
Christianity, Sainthood, Minority relations, Syria, Lebanon, The Middle East, Secularism, Prayer, Power of Example, Qualitative Analysis, Temporality, Waiting, Future, History, Migration, Escalations
Teaching
I teach in the following subjects:
- Migration, politics and social change
-History, Myth and Narration
Negotiating Culture
Qualitative Methods
Theories of Culture and Society
Theory of Science
Member of the Young Academy under the Danish Royal Academy of Science and Letters
Recent publications
Ethnographies of Waiting. Doubt, Hope and Uncertainty. London: Bloomsbury (2018, paperback 2019, with Manpreet K. Janeja).
Arjun Appadurai writes:
"This book is certainly worth the wait, since it offers a beautifully introduced anthropological collection that shows that waiting is no less than a general feature of the human condition. [...] It will be of great interest to anthropologists as well as humanists more generally."
Joel Robbins writes:
"Inasmuch as every good anthropologist cares about time, all of them stand to learn a great deal from this volume."
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