Paper short abstract:

The presentation explores multivalent activities at the (re)sacralised island of Selja to discuss how ambivalence emanating from (re)connecting landscape, ritual and history at this location exemplify how the spheres of religion, cultural heritage and nature experience are traversed and negotiated.

Paper long abstract:

The island of Selja is counted as one of the oldest Christian sacred places in Norway, due to its association to the legendary martyrdom of St Sunniva and the veneration of this patron saint between the 11th and 16th centuries. Left to decay after the Protestant Reformation, the ruins of the Sunniva Church were (re)evaluated as cultural heritage from the late 19th century. In the last decades, Selja has been re-envisioned as a pilgrimage destination, thus becoming an arena for renewed religious rituals, as well as for extra-institutional spirituality - with and without references to the transcendent.

The presentation explores how Selja is regarded as “special” for various reasons, that is, experienced as an enchanted place. Attention is paid to the ways in which contemporary, multivalent interpretations of the history and experience of the island are affected by the situatedness of the interpreters. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it is argued that the ambivalence emanating from the various ways landscape, ritual and history are (re)connected in this (re)sacralised landscape exemplify blurred spheres of religion, cultural heritage, and nature experience. The overall aim is to contribute to discussions about the need to reassess the limitations created by the dichotomies of nature/culture, history/legend and the sacred/secular, in interpreting and experiencing (re)storied and (re)sacralised landscapes.