Everyday Makings: An Interpretive Study of Creativity, Religiosity, and Care among Danish Muslim Women in Copenhagen
Author
Nielsen, Mie Ina Lilholm
Term
4. semester
Education
Publication year
2026
Abstract
This thesis explores how micro-entrepreneurship is shaped in the everyday lives of four Danish Muslim women in Copenhagen, and how creativity, religiosity, and care intertwine in what is conceptualized as gendered bricolage. Drawing on two months of ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation in mosques, Ramadan markets, and community events, the study examines three micro-businesses – Mamaskøkken (Lebanese food catering), unevenpieces (Islamic Ramadan décor), and Nomathemba (modest fashion) – and the four women who run them. The thesis argues that their entrepreneurial practices cannot be adequately understood through existing frameworks, which typically center a masculine, profit-driven and market-oriented subject. Instead, the notion of gendered bricolage captures an empirical triad in which creativity is approached as making, religiosity as enacted and lived faith, and care as the value-based decisions surrounding the businesses. These dimensions are analyzed through distinct conceptual lenses and grounded in the women’s own words and practices. Taken together, the study demonstrates a form of entrepreneurship that generates social, cultural, and community outcomes that dominant entrepreneurship discourses structurally overlook, thereby contributing to scholarship on gendered entrepreneurship, the anthropology of Islam in Scandinavia, and emerging discussions of Danish Muslim cultural production.
Denne afhandling undersøger, hvordan mikro-entreprenørskab formes i hverdagslivet hos fire danske, muslimske kvinder i København, og hvordan kreativitet, religiositet og omsorg flettes sammen i det, der begrebsliggøres som kønnet bricolage. Med udgangspunkt i to måneders etnografisk feltarbejde, semistrukturerede interviews og deltagerobservation i moskéer, på Ramadan-markeder og til fællesskabsarrangementer, analyseres tre mikrovirksomheder – Mamaskøkken (libanesisk madcatering), unevenpieces (islamisk Ramadan-udsmykning) og Nomathemba (modest fashion) – og de fire kvinder, der driver dem. Afhandlingen viser, at kvindernes virksomhedspraksis ikke lader sig forstå tilstrækkeligt gennem eksisterende entreprenørskabsrammer, som typisk bygger på en maskulin, profit- og markedsorienteret figur. I stedet beskriver begrebet kønnet bricolage en empirisk triade, hvor kreativitet forstås som skabende praksis, religiositet som levet og udøvet tro, og omsorg som de værdibaserede valg, der træffes i og omkring virksomheden. Disse dimensioner undersøges gennem særskilte teoretiske perspektiver og forankres i kvindernes egne ord og handlinger. Tilsammen viser analysen en form for entreprenørskab, der skaber sociale, kulturelle og fællesskabsorienterede resultater, som dominerende entreprenørskabsdiskurser strukturelt overser, og bidrager dermed til forskning i kønnet entreprenørskab, til antropologien om islam i Skandinavien og til en ny samtale om dansk-muslimsk kulturel produktion.
[This abstract has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project full text]