Michael Johan Brixtofte Petersen defends his PhD thesis

Michael Johan Brixtofte Petersen will defend his PhD thesis: Transnational Friction - An ethnographic study of ethical navigations and catholic practices among Polish migrants in Denmark.

The defense is public, and everybody is welcome; the defense is scheduled for a maximum of three hours and will be held in English. ISE will host a small reception afterwards

You can participate at 真人线上娱乐 University campus or online via Zoom: https://ruc-dk.zoom.us/j/65474617411?pwd=VXMzopaQ9HsQsdp97FhkgaLmZoIaG3.1 

Supervisors and assessment

Executive committee:

• Jacob Rasmussen, Associate Professor,  Department of Social Sciences and Business, 真人线上娱乐 University, Denmark (chairperson)
• Marta Erdal, Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway
• Joel Robbins, Professor, University of Cambridge, England

Supervisors:

• Supervisor: Professor Bj?rn Thomassen, Department of Social Sciences and Business, 真人线上娱乐 University
• Co-supervisor: Annika Hvithamar, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen

Head of defence:

• Tine Rostgaard, Professor, ISE, 真人线上娱乐 University

Abstract

This PhD is an ethnography of contemporary Catholic practices among Polish migrants in Denmark. The study is contextualized within the changing Catholic landscape in Denmark. The Catholic practice among Polish migrants in Denmark is also a testimony to the intercultural aspect of the development following the intra-European migration in the wake of the EU enlargement in 2004, as the church forms the framework for the religious life of several of the migrants who have come to Denmark from Poland. The Catholic practices within these communities further highlight the role of a particular form of Catholicism in a diasporic setting, namely the Polish form, with its own repertoire of cultural characteristics, myths, rituals, and materials. The Catholic Church as an ethical system also potentially informs the tensions and disruptions related to the contingent encounters of a transnational life. 

Combining observations and in-depth interviews, the thesis seeks to ground the analysis in an actionoriented perspective to examine how actors creatively engage with elements of the Catholic Church in their transnational navigation. Connecting these features, the thesis focuses on the interplay between the Church's role as a diasporic affective connection to the homeland, the ethical affordances the Church provides, and how actors draw on these elements in their transnational navigation. 
The first part of the thesis explores how the Polish part of the Catholic Church cultivates diasporic nationhood through rituals and institutional articulations of Polish Catholic national belonging. Here, I show how practices within the Church draw on the historical tropes of Polish Catholic nationhood in a transnational setting, and how both church members and the clerical personnel evaluate such elements. I show that the Church affords a connection to Polish nationhood through concrete elements, and how such practices connect to the contested political aspects of Polish Catholicism in a diasporic context. 

The second part of the thesis shows how the particularity of this form of Catholicism translates to intimate ethical negotiations in a transnational setting. The thesis shows how actors evaluate Catholic perspectives on the ethics of the family and sexuality when encountering ethical tensions on these matters in their lives of transition. I argue that the ethical navigation of these frontiers in a Danish non-Catholic public can result in ambivalent and occasionally Michael J. Brixtofte Petersen 2 awkward responses in the attempt to navigate new ethical terrains. I further show that such forms of ambivalence and friction are found among institutional representatives and Polish Catholic church members. Through such examination, I argue that the explicit ethical system of the Catholic Church on these matters is not merely rules that actors reproduce and latch onto but are critically evaluated and creatively developed amid problem-solving and meaningmaking in a transnational context. 

Finally, the thesis shows how the authority and discipline of the Catholic Church are evaluated and creatively innovated in a transnational setting. I show how priests and other institutional representatives who travel from Poland to Denmark assess their role as migrant chaplains and their diverging pedagogical approaches to the Polish migrant communities. I also show how members actively evaluate and respond to the authority and disciplinary aspects of Catholicism, highlighting the ways in which the Polish Catholic Church balances strict doctrinal coherence and the social ambiguities and frictions that the migratory situation provokes. 

Throughout the thesis, the analysis moves in the interplay between the tangible explicit forms of practice within the Polish Church and how Polish migrants utilize and evaluate these forms as frames of interpretation amid the problem-solving and meaning-making of a migratory life. Applying a pragmatist optic, the thesis draws on theories and strands from the social scientific study of transnational Catholicism, diaspora studies, and anthropological theories on the relationship between religion and ethics. 

The thesis contributes by suggesting the relevance of an action-oriented analysis of such processes, while also contributing to the limited amount of ethnographic inquiry and academic literature on Catholic transnationalism in a Danish and Nordic context.

 The dissertation will be available for reading at the 真人线上娱乐 University Library before the defence (on-site use). The dissertation will also be available at the defence.

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