Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway
Social reconciliation has received much attention in Christian churches since the late 1980s. Both the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway initiated reconciliation processes with the Saami (also “Sami” or “Sámi”), the indigenous people of Northern Europe, at the beginning of the 1990s. As form...
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2022
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ftunivhelsihelda:oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/348763 2023-08-20T04:09:29+02:00 Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway West, Helga Sofia 2022-09-28T15:17:17Z application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10138/348763 unknown Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute West, H.S. Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway. Religions 2020, 11, 343. http://hdl.handle.net/10138/348763 http://purl.org/eprint/entityType/JournalArticle http://purl.org/eprint/entityType/Expression 2022 ftunivhelsihelda 2023-07-28T06:10:23Z Social reconciliation has received much attention in Christian churches since the late 1980s. Both the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway initiated reconciliation processes with the Saami (also “Sami” or “Sámi”), the indigenous people of Northern Europe, at the beginning of the 1990s. As former state churches, they bear the colonial burden of having converted the Saami to Lutheranism. To make amends for their excesses in the missionary field, both Scandinavian churches have aimed at structural changes to include Saaminess in their church identities. In this article, I examine how the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway understand reconciliation in relation to the Saami in their own church documents using conceptual analysis. I argue that the Church of Sweden treats reconciliation primarily as a secular concept without binding it to the doctrine of reconciliation, making the Church’s agenda theologically weak, whereas the Church of Norway utilizes Christian resources in its comprehensive approach to reconciliation with the Saami. This article shows both the challenges and contributions of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway to the hotly debated discussions on truth and reconciliation in the Nordic Saami context. Article in Journal/Newspaper saami sami Sámi Helsingfors Universitet: HELDA – Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto Norway |
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Helsingfors Universitet: HELDA – Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto |
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Social reconciliation has received much attention in Christian churches since the late 1980s. Both the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway initiated reconciliation processes with the Saami (also “Sami” or “Sámi”), the indigenous people of Northern Europe, at the beginning of the 1990s. As former state churches, they bear the colonial burden of having converted the Saami to Lutheranism. To make amends for their excesses in the missionary field, both Scandinavian churches have aimed at structural changes to include Saaminess in their church identities. In this article, I examine how the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway understand reconciliation in relation to the Saami in their own church documents using conceptual analysis. I argue that the Church of Sweden treats reconciliation primarily as a secular concept without binding it to the doctrine of reconciliation, making the Church’s agenda theologically weak, whereas the Church of Norway utilizes Christian resources in its comprehensive approach to reconciliation with the Saami. This article shows both the challenges and contributions of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway to the hotly debated discussions on truth and reconciliation in the Nordic Saami context. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
West, Helga Sofia |
spellingShingle |
West, Helga Sofia Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway |
author_facet |
West, Helga Sofia |
author_sort |
West, Helga Sofia |
title |
Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway |
title_short |
Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway |
title_full |
Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway |
title_fullStr |
Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway |
title_full_unstemmed |
Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway |
title_sort |
renegotiating relations, structuring justice: institutional reconciliation with the saami in the 1990–2020 reconciliation processes of the church of sweden and the church of norway |
publisher |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10138/348763 |
geographic |
Norway |
geographic_facet |
Norway |
genre |
saami sami Sámi |
genre_facet |
saami sami Sámi |
op_relation |
West, H.S. Renegotiating Relations, Structuring Justice: Institutional Reconciliation with the Saami in the 1990–2020 Reconciliation Processes of the Church of Sweden and the Church of Norway. Religions 2020, 11, 343. http://hdl.handle.net/10138/348763 |
_version_ |
1774722468083138560 |