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Unni Wikan

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description Unni Wikan Overview

Unni Wikan is a Norwegian social anthropologist and professor emerita at the University of Oslo. Her fieldwork has included Egypt, Oman, Bali, Bhutan, Yemen, and other settings, while her writing examines Islam, cultural rights, and the relationship between cultural practices and universal human rights. She has also contributed to debates about women’s lives in Muslim societies, integration, and cultural relativism.

help Unni Wikan FAQ

Where did Unni Wikan conduct fieldwork?

Wikan's fieldwork has included Egypt, Oman, Bali, Bhutan, and Yemen, among other settings. Her books therefore cover Muslim societies as well as Southeast Asian social life and questions of cultural interpretation.

What did Unni Wikan write about women in Oman?

Her book Behind the Veil in Arabia: Women in Oman was published in 1982. It examines women's lives and social relationships in Oman rather than treating Islam as a single uniform cultural experience.

What is Managing Turbulent Hearts about?

Managing Turbulent Hearts: A Balinese Formula for Living was published in 1990 and focuses on how people in Bali manage emotion, suffering, morality, and social presentation. Wikan uses the book to develop an anthropology of experience that takes people's own feelings and interpretations seriously. [University of Chicago Press](https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3626636.html)

How does Wikan approach cultural rights and universal values?

She examines the tension between respecting cultural practices and defending values that claim wider human relevance. Her 2002 book Generous Betrayal: Politics of Culture in the New Europe addresses that conflict in debates about multiculturalism and integration.

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