About me, Mikael
My doctoral thesis is based on several years of fieldwork (1991–1997) on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the state of South Dakota, home to the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) people. In the thesis, I examine how the Lakota ethnic identity is negotiated in the field of tension between the pressures and demands of the majority society, the dictates of tradition, the expectations of kinship and notions of belonging and exclusion.
After completing my thesis, from 2002 onwards I became involved in the debate on honour-related violence in Sweden and how it affects the understanding of cultural differences, national identity and integration. This involvement took me far beyond traditional academic environments and forced me to actively cultivate modes of presentation, in both speech and writing, that would work for a wider audience than the academic one.
Alongside my interest in North American indigenous peoples and basic anthropological questions about cultural identity, cultural differences and the relationship between language and thought, I have always had a strong interest in existential issues.
These interests come together in my book “I varje trumslag jordens puls: om vår tids rädsla för skillnader” (In every beat of the Earth’s pulse: our era’s fear of differences), published by Ordfront in 2005.
My employment at the Central Church Office began in 2013. My work includes coordinating the Office’s external affairs analysis activities. As part of these activities, I started up the annual publication Tidens tecken (Signs of the Times), for which I also act as editor. Tidens tecken has recruited writers from different backgrounds – established academics, internationally renowned writers and thinkers, artists and journalists.
As part of the process of highlighting observations on external issues, I have, in addition to publishing Tidens tecken, carried out a wide-ranging programme of lectures in both purely ecclesiastical and more general “existential” contexts. These lectures formed the basis for the book published in autumn 2019 entitled När själen går i exil: modernitet, teknologi och det heliga (When the soul is sent into exile: modernity, technology and the holy (Verbum)), which Björn Wiman, Culture Editor at the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, described as one of the “most readable books of 2019” (DN 18/01/2020).
Selection of my publications
Scientific publications
1996
Bauhn, et al. Multiculturalism and Nationhood in Canada (review). Acta Americana. 4(2): 79–85.
1997 a
“Building the Nation Back Up”: The Politics of Identity on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Uppsala: Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology: 22. (Doctoral thesis)
1997 c
The Return of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. Acta Americana 6:2: 22–39.
1998 a
Voices of the Land: Identity and Ecology in the Margins. (Co-editor A.
Hornborg) Lund Studies in Human Ecology 1. Lund: Lund University Press.
1998 b
Identity-Processes in Native North America. In: Hornborg, A. & M. Kurkiala (Eds.), Voices of the Land: Identity and Ecology in the Margins. Lund Studies in Human Ecology 1. Lund: Lund University Press.
1998 c
The Lakota of South Dakota: The Reconstitution of Indigenous Identity on the Pine Ridge Reservation. In: Hornborg, A. & M. Kurkiala (Eds.), Voices of the Land: Identity and Ecology in the Margins. Lund Studies in Human Ecology 1. Lund: Lund University Press.
1998 d
Contested Identities: A Cross-cultural Comparison Between Identity-Politics in Anthropological Academia and an Indian Reservation. Anthropological studies 60–61: 7–16.
1999
Kurkiala’s Complaint. European Review of Native American Studies 13(1): 54–5.
2001
Hultkrantz, Å. 1997. The Attraction of Peyote: An Inquiry into the Basic Conditions for the Diffusion of the Peyote Religion in North America. (Review). Acta Americana (9): 1.
2002 a
Cosmology, Social Change, and Human Environmental Relations among the
Lakota in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Lund: Working Papers in Human Ecology 3.
2002 b
Business as Usual? Critical Remarks on the Trivialization of Difference and Diversity. LBC Newsletter, 2. pp. 24–27.
2002 c
Kluskap’s Return. Review of Hornborg, A. 2001. A Landscape of Left-Overs: Changing Conceptions of Place and Environment among Mi’kmaq Indians of
Eastern Canada. European Review of Native American Studies 16(1): 56–58.
2002 d
Objectifying the Past: Lakota Responses to Western Historiography. Critique of Anthropology. 22(4): 445–460.
2003
Interpreting Honour Killings: The Story of Fadime Sahindal (1975–2002) in
the Swedish Press. Anthropology Today 19(1): 6–7.
2016
Treading on a Minefield: Anthropology and the Debate on Honor Killings in Sweden. Bringa, T. & S. Benedixen (Eds.), Engaged Anthropology: Views from Scandinavia. Palgrave Macmillan.