Overview

One of the fastest growing religious movements in the Western world, neo-shamanism embraces notions and techniques borrowed from various tribal peoples and adapted to the life of contemporary urban dwellers. Until the twenty-first century, the neo-shamanism found in northern Europe differed little from neo-shamanism elsewhere in the Western world. In the new millennium, a Sámi and Nordic version of neo-shamanism came into being, along with a new focus on the uniqueness of the arctic north, expressed through New Age courses and events. The Norwegian New Age scene is increasingly overrun with Sámi and Nordic shamans, symbols, and traditions. Contemporary Shamanisms in Norway examines the construction of this Sámi neo-shamanistic movement and argues that it fits into the broader ethno-political search for a Sami identity. Drawing on ten years of ethnographic research, Trude Fonneland highlights the values important to neo-shamans' self-development and their marketing of shamanistic products and services. She explores Sáami and Nordic neo-shamans' promotion of Arctic nature, their negotiations of gender in neo-shamanism, and their ritual inventions. Focusing on contemporary shamanism in Norway and Nordic contexts, Fonneland argues that the spiritual quest in Nordic countries has developed surprising and innovative forms of spirituality that call for a reevaluation of the relationship between religion and the secular world.

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9780190678821

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This book paints a vivid picture of contemporary shamanism through the voices of the shamans themselves, along with the writer's excellent analysis of their stories and relations. The book illuminates how the shamanic movement developed in our times, locating the religious ideas within contemporary cultural currents like identity politics, yearnings for mythical nature and authenticity, and re-evaluations and interpretations of distant pasts. How global trends are localized within shamanistic ideas in present-day Northern Norway is presented in excellent ways in this book. -Torunn Selberg, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Bergen, Norway This is a fascinating book, fresh and up to date, written by one of the worlds foremost scholars on Sami and contemporary shamanisms. It offers the perfect blend of academic comprehensiveness and vivid case studies, and portrays and analyzes interesting aspects of contemporary religious life. --Liselotte Frisk, Professor of Religious Studies, Dalarna University, Sweden In Contemporary Shamanisms in Norway, folklorist Trude Fonneland presents a nuanced and enlightening look at Sami and Norwegian shamanic practitioners in Norway today. Fonneland explores how contemporary shamans adapt ideas and methods arising from the 'core shamanism' of American Michael Harner to create or recover shamanisms that embrace the traditions and environment of Norway, past and present...A must-read for any scholar of Western New Age religious movements and a lively account of the formation of contemporary shamanic practices in this northern periphery of Europe, Contemporary Shamanisms in Norway is sure to become a standard work in the study of modern European religious cultures. --Thomas A. Dubois, Halls-Bascom Professor of Scandinavian Studies, Folklore, and Religion, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Author Information

Trude Fonneland is Professor at the Department of Culture Studies, Tromsø University Museum at the University of Tromsø, the Arctic University of Norway. Her research interests revolve around contemporary religion in society, particularly Sámi shamanism, tourism, and popular culture.

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