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Exploring Alternative Childhoods: Studying Kids in Cults
Dalarna University, School of Humanities and Media Studies, Religious Studies. (Barn i sekter)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0132-2074
2014 (English)In: Sociology of Family, Social Life and Childhood, 2014Conference paper, Oral presentation only (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The study of new religious movements (cults) has been a controversial topic since its inception in the early 1970s. Numerous volumes have been published on a variety of topics, e. g.: affiliation and defection, the impact of charismatic leadership, gender roles and sexuality, violence and mass suicides, and the relationship with the media. However, very little attention has been given to the children of these movements. The situation for the children growing up in the movements constitute, at best, a small part of the study of a movement, but they are rarely ever subjects of such a study in their own right. Most commonly, their situation is investigated in retrospect, as they tell their life stories to researchers once they have reached adulthood. Not surprisingly, these life stories tend to look quite different depending on whether a member has stayed in or left the group. Another problematic aspect regarding the studies done in retrospect, is that new religious movements are, by definition, prone to rapid change. This may result in vast differences concerning socialization between generations, even between siblings within a family. Therefore, factual and up to date information about socialization within new religious movements is highly important. This presentation takes a look at the current field of study and suggests how this”blind spot” in the study of childhood can be covered. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2014.
Keywords [en]
childhood, new religious movements, sociology
National Category
Religious Studies
Research subject
Research Profiles 2009-2020, Intercultural Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-14958OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-14958DiVA, id: diva2:739212
Conference
Exploring Blind Spots, The 27th Conference of the Nordic Sociological Association, Lund, 14-16 August, 2014
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2011-1801Available from: 2014-08-20 Created: 2014-08-20 Last updated: 2024-01-11Bibliographically approved

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Nilsson, Sanja

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf