The Danish Pluralism Project
Mapping, analysing, and interpreting the religious pluralism in Denmark.
Introduction
The Danish Pluralism Project is an academic research project which has set out to document the growing religious diversity in Denmark. A project hosted and undertaken by the Centre for Multireligious Studies.
The main objectives of the project are:
- to document the changes in the religious landscape, in order to carry out the mapping of the new religious demography. This overall mapping of religious groups will lead to a focus on transformations processes.
- to analyse how religions and religious traditions change and develop within new contexts in relation to social, as well as cognitive structures. What is changing in a cultural encounter? What is happening within the religions over time and when they adjust to modernity and new ideals in life?
- to understand the background for the new religions and alternative spiritual groups that are emerging and
- to interpret the theological positions within Christianity that can be seen as responses to the new religious variety.
Pilot Project: Mapping the religious pluralism of Aarhus
The municipality of Aarhus, and its 280,000 citizens, became the mapping ground for the first part of the project. A research project documenting the religious diversity in Aarhus - the second largest city in Denmark - was prepared and carried out by a team of researchers from the Departments of Religion and Theology at the University of Aarhus. In this mapping process, a comprehensive fieldwork of interviews and observations was conducted by MA candidates and students of religion and theology, and the results were published in March this year in a volume titled:
Religiøs mangfoldighed. En kortlægning af religion og spiritualitet i Århus . Redigeret af Marianne Qvortrup Fibiger. Forlaget Systime, 2004. 502 sider, kr. 250,-.
(Religious Diversity.The Mapping of Religion and Spirituality in Aarhus.Edited by Marianne C. Qvortrup Fibiger.Systime Publications, 2004.502 pages, Dkr. 250.-.)
As indicated, this volume is in Danish, but the link to the homepage below will serve as the gateway to summaries and abstracts of the project results so far, as well as to introductory information to the international part of the project.
In 2005, two volumes in the book series: Religious Pluralism in Denmark has been published so far (two more will be published in the autumn this year, and two more in 2006). The first volume is Jørn Borup: Dansk Dharma. Buddhisme og buddhister i Danmark (Danish Dharma. Buddhism and Buddhists in Denmark, 212 pages). The second volume is Viggo Mortensen: Kristendommen under forvandling (Christianity in Transformation, 249 pages). Publisher: Forlaget Univers (Univers Publishers). Price: Dkr. 199.- each.
Team of researchers:
Viggo Mortensen (Director), Marianne C. Qvortrup Fibiger (Research Coordinator), Lars Ahlin, Lene Kühle, Jørn Borup, René Dybdal Pedersen (Project Secretary).
More information is available: