Minority Studies

The research group is dedicated to the study of minorities in the widest sense: ethnic, linguistic, religious, of gender, of sexuality, and of race.

Sarna worshippers following their religious rites Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Vikram Ekka CC0

Affiliation

About the research group

The research group is dedicated to the study of minorities in the widest sense: ethnic, linguistic, religious, of gender, of sexuality, and of race.

Every society has communities that differ in one of these aspects from the majority (defined in numbers and/or in power) of its citizens. These differences are often expressed in terms of hierarchy, practices of exclusion, coercion to assimilate, attempts to include, and in subtler ways such as aesthetic preferences. These ways in which majorities and minorities encounter and interact expose both in majorities and in minorities deep-seated attitudes, values, and mentalities that tend to be invisible until evoked by the encounter between the two.

We explore such theoretical questions and practical and political questions that the minority-majority encounter raises. Other examples of themes we explore are: minority as an identity – real or imagined; minorities as a social and discursive category; and of social dynamics between minorities and majorities and within minorities themselves; minorities within minorities; minority policy issues.

Coorporation

The research group is interdisciplinary. It includes specialists from the different disciplines and fields from the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, from the Faculty of Humanities, and other faculties at the University of Bergen as well as two faculty members from other academic institutions. Moreover, the research group aims to recruit also members in early stages of their careers: Ph.D. candidates and B.A. and M.A. students working on projects on minorities.

Its activities will be geared toward strengthening both the university’s research activities, academic ties across the disciplines, and its educational goals by giving faculty, students, and PhD candidates an inspiring environment to support their work.

Activities autumn 2025

Tuesday 4 November: Discussing teaching religious minorities in Oslo

On Tuesday 4 November we will visit several institutions relevant for the study of minorities in Oslo, such as the Holocaust-Center, STL Oslo - Samarbeidsrådet for tros- og livssynssamfunn Oslo, Institutt for kirke-, religions- og livssynsforskning (KIFO). The aim is to discuss possibilities and strategies for the study of religious minorities at the University of Bergen.

Please contact Alexander.Haven@uib.no if you can join us in Oslo.

Wednesday 12 November, 15:15-16:45: Michael Stausberg: Religious Minorities in Iran.

Sydneshaugen skole. Kollokvierom 217

Michael Stausberg, Professor in the Study of Religion, Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, will present his research on religious minorities in Iran.

Tuesday 18 November, 15-16: Keren Abbou Hershkovits: Mothers, sons, and the communities in-between in early Arabic historiography.

Online presentation. Please contact Alexander.Haven@uib.no to receive the zoom link.

Keren Abbou Hershkovits, The Department of History, Philosophy and Jewish Studies, Open

University, Israel

Keren Abbou Hershkovits currently focuses on early Abbasid sources that describe early converts to Islam. Her work aims to uncover how this process was understood and presented across different historiographical genres. Her main interest is in how women are depicted in these accounts and for what purposes. She is currently co-editing a book titled Scriptural Sexuality. Her most recent paper, "Circulating Knowledge: Receiving, Transmitting and Employing, a Gendered Perspective," was published in Catalin-Stefan Popa (ed.), Teaching and Learning the Norms of Life and Faith: Pedagogues, Educators and Their Heritage in Abrahamic Religions, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. She is in the process of writing a monograph, tentatively titled: Men Writing Women: Gendered Aspects of Early Islam. Her presentation today discusses some of the findings of the first chapter.

Abstract

Qurʾān verses and ḥadīth repeatedly enjoin honoring one’s parents—especially one’s mother. Yet while maternity is framed as a woman’s imperative, our sources do little to spell out what “motherhood” entails in practice. Compounding this gap, mothers are only sparsely depicted in early Arabic historiography. This paper focuses on episodes where mothers interact with their sons to ask why these women appear at all—and what work they do when they do appear.

When read in a broader context and considered as part of a larger narrative, it becomes apparent that mothers are not merely historical figures, but rather serve as shorthand, cueing author’s arguments without the need to state them explicitly. It further becomes apparent that there is no one single aspect of motherhood that is praised or expected. In one case, the great grief the mother expresses is the “right” emotion, whereas in another account, her steadfastness is the commended expression. This variability suggests that it is not “motherhood” that is being described, or at least not only motherhood, but also values, norms and piety.

These accounts, moreover, tell us more about men than about women. Because they are male-authored and male-facing, they train attention on the son’s comportment and on how his reaction forecasts or endorses communal response. When Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr rejects a gift from her son without a word, the narrator marks his distress, his instant grasp of the norm he violated, and his chastened acceptance, quietly staging mothers as moral guides, signaling the premium on modesty, and underscoring the son’s duty to safeguard his mother’s comfort.

Through close readings of several mother–son interactions, the paper maps these functions without reconstructing a social history of maternal duties. In this corpus, the mother functions less as subject than as an authorizing device, one that encapsulates privileged knowledge of her son, licenses moral judgment about him, and cues communal norms.