Programme
Anne Grønseth
Associate Professor
Faculty of Social Sciences
Lillehammer University College
E/ anne.gronseth@svt.ntnu.no
Being Tamil in Norway: Negotiations of Well-Being and Identity
This paper departs from a study of Tamil refugees' experience of pain and suffering as they re-establish themselves in Norway. The paper presents a case study that illustrates how Tamils' suffering relates to a human capacity and need to extend themselves into and be part of the social world of others. Tamils are not only faced with social fragmentation, dissolution and stigmatization, but also with a loss of religious life and ritual practices. Taking an approach of embodiment and existentiality, the paper discusses how Tamils in exile are challenged to reconstruct and transgress familiar Hindu cultural values and social relations. Exploring Tamils' search for new ways to practice religious life and relating to others, the paper suggests a turn towards individuation and a humanistic cosmopolitan subjectivity.
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Prof. Grønseth teaches in fields of health, life-quality and social anthropology.
For more than 10 years she was employed as a Special Consultant at Violence and
Trauma Competence Center, University Hospital of Northern Norway where she
engaged in research, teaching and clinical supervision. Her research is
conducted among Tamil refugees and migrants in Norway, with a focus on issues of
identity, health, wellbeing, body and agency. The field was approached by
exploring Tamil everyday life in a local fishing village community along the
arctic coast of northern Norway in which health and well-being is understood as
embedded in social processes and existential experiences. Currently, she is
doing a follow-up study to explore migrant experience in a life-span perspective
focusing on the interconnectedness of health and religion, and health and
kinship. Her publications include, "In Search of Community: A Quest for Well
Being among Tamil Refugees in Northern Norway," Medical Anthropology
Quarterly 15(4) (2006); "Experiences of Illness: Tamil refugees in Norway
Seeking Medical Advise," in Multiple Medical Realities: Patients and Healers
in Biomedical, Alternative and Traditional Medicine (2006).