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This paper argues that interreligious dialogue through study and friendships across the religious divide makes participants less susceptible to religious and cultural misinformation that is often used to maintain social bubbles, in which members draw clear boundaries between "us" and "them". Differences between social groups can culminate in a struggle between "good" and "evil" that can escalate into tension and violence. Preventing tensions and conflicts requires respect for differences, willingness to engage in dialogue, and a sound understanding of what religion is and the historical processes that have determined its development, distinguishing between empirical facts and images to which believers adhere. Because the author is a Dutch sociologist turned journalist from a conservative Christian family involved in interreligious dialogue in the Netherlands, Israel, and Egypt, the literature review presents contemporary religious developments in all three countries. The literature review is flanked by the author's personal narrative on the events that changed his views on truth and spirituality, making him more aware of the commonalities between peoples of different beliefs and leading him to a lifelong commitment to interreligious and intercultural dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a material culture approach in order to explore multiple dimensions in the production of denim in an export dominated assembly plant in Port Said, Egypt. Ethnographic data are analyzed to highlight the interplay between the surfaces and tools used in garment making and the skills and strategies deployed by factory workers, so elucidating some of the less immediately visible nuances in the turbulence of daily life on the production shop floor. Contrary to the common view that dismisses production tasks as repetitive and boring, these processes reveal the technical structures, skill hierarchies and uses of shop-floor language that give shade and variation to the skills attributed to different stages of "made-to-order" garment assembly work. These dynamics become more significant within the specific context of global and local competition for orders in which denim is established as the definitive fabric and brand through which reputations are made and sustained-for workers, for firms and for the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]