More information
Description
The project studies how places and routes with a religious or mythical past can gain renewed significance through processes of narration, heritagisation, and the creation of inclusive spaces attracting diverse groups of people and individuals. By exploring the changing meanings of rural places and routes, and their potential in promoting social inclusion, we aim to identify models for enhancing the integrative power of places in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Norway. In all these countries, we can observe old and new forms of place-making and revivals of pilgrimage traditions at different stages of development. Christian and pre-Christian sites and monuments, once defunct, are today acquiring additional value as sites of cultural heritage, while nature and landscape are re-evaluated as domains for spiritual growth.
Many formerly abandoned places, practices and narrative traditions are thus being reframed in light of contemporary societal values and challenges. With a consortium that combines expertise in the fields of vernacular religion, folklore and narrative theory, heritage studies and cultural history, we shall scrutinise, how places are made meaningful; how they are imagined and represented in different kinds of media; the economic impact of such re-presentations; why some of these places become inclusive and attract people with diverse backgrounds, while others seem to fail this capacity or, moreover, become sources of division; and how people can re-narrate themselves in relation to place. These reanimated, multi-vocally narrated, performed and practiced places may provide the loci for locals, travellers, the socially excluded and newcomers to set in motion significant storyworlds, and emerging, inclusive socio-cultural environments.
Summary of project results
The main objective of the project was to provide fieldwork based, in-depth analyses of currently restored and re-storied holy sites, heritage places and pilgrimage routes in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and the UK, highlighting their potential not only for economic regeneration and new ways of understanding and experiencing the past and landscape, but for social, ethnic and religious inclusion. At the level of theory and methodology we aimed at innovations in the study and conceptualization of social space, place and environment, expressive forms of vernacular culture, new forms of religiosity and heritagisation of religion. Also, we were planning to study the potential such restored and re-storied sites and routes may afford in relation to helping social groups and individuals to feel ''at home'' in the heritagised ''domestication'' of the cultural landscape.
These main objectives of the project were achieved in full. We produced a considerable amount of empirical data from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and UK, where we revealed similar processes of reviving heritage places, holy sites and of pilgrimage routes. The similarities express common socio-cultural changes in Europe in spite of the increasing social, ethnic, and religious diversity. Hence, it is not surprising that we also found differences and diversification in constructing heritage places, holy sites and alternative pilgrimage routes in the Baltic states, Norway and UK. Some of the historical factors that have shaped cultural similarities and differences are common elements in religion (e.g. Protestant traditions in Estonia, North-Latvia and Norway and Catholicism in Lithuania) and in ideology (the impact of state-sponsored atheism and Marxist-Leninist ideology in former Soviet Union). Methodologically, the project relied on fieldwork and qualitative analysis of the interviews as a means of joint knowledge production, where both scholars and local people are engaged. Conceptually, we developed the notion of placelore as a form of vernacular knowledge, which makes places meaningful both for the local people and visitors, including pilgrims and tourists. Indeed, placelore has a role to play in the domestication of landscape and turning it into a livable social environment where one can feel at home.
The outcomes of the project are academically relevant for the significant transdisciplinary interest in studying places as meaningful locations that mark the human environment, defining its boundaries, limits, scopes, and coordinates. The final volume, published by Equinox presents an in-depth exploration of the intricate relationship between humans and their environment, focusing on the interplay of storytelling, traditional communities, conflicting ontologies, and the concept of place. It elucidates the dynamic process of placelore as a continuous intertwining of narration and experience in ongoing interaction with sites of past religious or mythical significance. The case studies detail narrative practices by which places are made meaningful; how special places are imagined in different kinds of media; how their religious history is re-presented as cultural heritage, administered by national institutions; how some of these places become inclusive and attract new or diverse audiences while others become sources of division; and how people re-narrate themselves in relation to place.
Placelore, Pilgrim Routes, Restoried Sites and Contested Spaces will be the project''s final outcome. Earlier results were several special issues covering different geographical regions, going beyond the Nordic and Baltic spheres. Placelore as a theoretical concept and the related methodology have inspired scholars outside the project, who have published articles in the special issue of the Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics (17: 1). The PhD dissertations that have been written within the frames of the project examine cultures and placelore not only of Norway and Lithuania but of Mongolia and North Eastern India (Sikkim and Assam). This is evidence of the wide applicability of the conceptual framework and method developed in the project. The future impact of the project and its sustainability will appear not only in the growing number of references to the publications of the project but also in the work of young scholars and students who have received valuable experience working in the inspiring environment of an international team and have had a chance to learn from the leading scholars in the field.
Summary of bilateral results
The case studies provided by the Norwegian team highlight the factor of a highly institutionalized and centralized cultural heritage sector in its impact on the understanding, management, and use of religious and historical sites, which allowed us to calibrate our analyses of top-down and bottom-up dynamics in the making of place. The Lithuanian team, developed connections with phenomenology, elaborating further on the pre-existing scholarship on the holy sites and contributing the narrative perspective. Several private photo archives were discovered that provide both new insight into the levels of religious commitment in Latvia during the Soviet times and possibility to employ the visual research methods. The Estonian team coordinated the project, and offered a set of well-focused case studies ranging from life stories to pilgrimage narratives and historically multi-layered placelore – mainly in Estonia, but also in other countries, such as England, India and Russia. The project teams collaborated closely throughout the whole project period. Beyond the administrative and academic work conducted at the project workshops and field trips, becoming familiar with different research, learning from different research traditions and experiencing the living history in each country provided invaluable impulses not only to our research, but to our academic work more generally. At the University of Oslo, for example, the undergraduate course on Europe’s cultural history now features Baltic history and perspectives, inspired by the project, re-shaping narratives about Europe for a new generation of students. Collaboration between project members continues in the form of project development and joint applications for European funding as well as through Erasmus cooperations.