This seminar has been cancelled.
Welcome to the second Environmental and Climate Humanities seminar with Hans Olsson, guest researcher at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Copenhagen, titled “‘Farming God’s Way’? Articulations of biblical farming in South Africa”
When: October 26 kl. 12.00-13.00
Where: 22-0031 (same entrance as Humanistiska teatern), English Park Campus, see map here: https://link.mazemap.com/k1hn0pOx
Online: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/61956622459
How: We open the doors at 12.00 for mingle and bring your own lunch, the seminar starts 12.15 with a presentation by the invited speaker followed by discussion 12.45, and we end 13.00 sharp.
October 26 kl. 12.00-13.00
Hans Olsson ‘Farming God’s Way’? Articulations of biblical farming in South Africa
Moderated by Sofia Oreland, Department of Theology
https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/61956622459
With growing attention placed on Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians’ public role, the globally growing strand of churches’ relationship to the environment remain largely understudied. This presentation will zoom in on the growing public presence of Pentecostal-Charismatic and Evangelical Christianity, and address how cultivating food ‘God’s way’ takes form and interplay with discourses of poly-crisis in South Africa. Using ethnographic methods, biblically authorised land practices are analysed as taking place between emotional attachments and public discourse. I will argue for understanding farming as a space of both mediating human-nature relations as well as contestation in relation to what land is for and how it should be used.
Bio
Hans Olsson (PhD Lund University 2017) is currently a guest researcher at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Copenhagen, where he between 2019-2023, held a Marie Curie Fellowship, running a project on Evangelical Charismatic Christian farming, cultivation and sustainability in South Africa (see more FarGo). He is an affiliated researcher at the Department of Anthropology, Rhodes University, and has earlier written on Pentecostal-Muslim encounters in the context of Zanzibar and Tanzania.