Suchergebnisse

This paper aims to introduce an alternative research approach in dealing with migrant communities as religioscapes, from the perspective of religious aesthetic. Namely, it focuses on the Greek and Greek-Cypriot migrant communities in Germany and Great Britain and examines their religiocultural symbolic constellations in the public sphere, particularly, those which illustrate aspects of their self-perception and migration narratives. In both cases churches serve as arks of culture and identity. In the lapse of time, community and church, being closely knit, jointly constructed their migrant narratives of de- and re-territorialisation, cultural adaptation and hybridisation, essentially their own distinct sense of being and belonging. Therefore, one observes the phenomenon of interwoven migrant and church narratives. The particularities of these constantly under construction identities are manifest in the architectural, hagiographical/iconographical themes, aesthetics and concepts of their churches. It is typical, however, of the Byzantine iconographic tradition to include and demonstrate the socio-political conditions of its time and place; and, those visual manifestations, as part of a sociocultural reality, possess a contextual dimension in their symbolic content, while being an act and a medium of communication in their own right. It is therefore feasible to decode their aforementioned content and articulate the narrative therein.

Describes delegation & accountability in Greece, focusing on the effects of the 1975 Constitution upon presidential & parliamentary powers. The post-dictatorship origins of the Constitution are examined, as are its provisions of parliamentary legislation & constitutional amendments. The process of delegation & accountability is clearly delineated & highly institutionalized according to the Constitution. But the influence of clientistic networks prevents Greece from being regarded as a model of delegation & accountability. The 1975 Constitution also strove to "rationalize" Greek political institutions, as exemplified by cabinet-Parliament relations. The cabinet has clear dominance over Parliament in legislation, bolstered by an electoral system that favors such power relations. But with the receding of charismatic leaders, intra-parliamentary divisions are increasingly questioning cabinet supremacy, shifting the balance of power to the Parliament. 1 Table, 37 References. K. Coddon

This book examines the social and political mobilisation of religious communities towards forced displacement in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. It analyses religious strategies in relation to tolerance and transitory environments as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the post-2011 Syrian crisis and the 2014 Russian takeover of Crimea. How do religious actors and state bodies engage with refugees and migrants? What are the mechanisms of religious support towards forcibly displaced communities? The book argues that when states do not act as providers of human security, religious communities, as representatives of civil society and often closer to the grass roots level, can be well placed to serve populations in need. The book brings together scholars from across the region and provides a comprehensive overview of the ways in which religious communities tackle humanitarian crises in contemporary Armenia, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan