Reconstructing Sacred Geographies

Abstract

The chapter begins with a reflection on historical notions of sacred place and how senses of sacred place are perceived and understood. Pilgrimage networks are constructed from memories of sacred places and ritualized in relationship to holy people or events. In medieval Norway, the notion of sacred landscape emerged as an interweaving of Norse and Christian elements. This sacred geography was transformed by the development of modern energy forms, transportation, and infrastructure projects made possible in part through Norway’s petroleum wealth. Even so, the pilgrimage network sought to re-establish a route network from forgotten and reimagined paths, which slowly was pieced together from the 1960s onward. The chapter ends by asking how notions of landscape, interspecies relationships, and political theologies have reconstructed notions of sacred place, sainthood, and landscape in a secularizing, increasingly multiethnic and multireligious Norway.