Suchergebnisse

Hilma Granqvist was educated at Helsinki University in the tradition of the Westermarck School. The topic of her dissertation 'Women in the Old Testament' led her to carry out fieldwork in Palestine. Between 1925 and 1931 she carried out fieldwork in the village of Artas, in all a 3-year period. Her radical decision to study only one village and thereby restrain from wider comparisons severed her relationship with her supervisor. Consequently she could not present her thesis at Helsinki University. Westermarck allowed her to defend it at Åbo Akademi University in January 19 32. He acted as her opponent even though he was just retiring from his professorship there. In Granqvist's dissertation on marriage conditions in Artas, as well as in her other publications, methods that combined statistics, participant observation and commentaries by local people were used. This combination made her able to distinguish between the ideal and the actual. Hilma Granqvist became the victim of a stagnating scientific school. Her academic career was totally blocked in Finland. Although she received international recognition, she had to work alone without support and encouragement.

Change constitutes different things for the groups, as the position of one group may improve, but that of another deteriorate. Social change is a consequence of how the different groups act, and their actions again depend on their social and economic interests. In other words, there are groups in society (social classes, professional groups, the agrarian population, industrial workers), which come more or less openly in conflict with each other when looking after their interests. Thus this way of thinking is based on a conflict model. One sees social change as a consequence of people trying to protect their social and economic interests. Viewed this way even religious organizations and movements are involved in protecting the interests of social groups. However, the interesting point in this connection is that religious movements differ from political movements and groups, as the religious movements express the social interests of a group more indirectly than the political movements. The religious movements gather people from similar living conditions, and so to speak, prepare them for political work. They defend and justify the way of living of a group, and thus give ideological material for political groupings. They may also form coalitions with political groups and parties. The author analyzes Laestadianism from this point of view. Before going into the connection between religious dynamics and social change it is necessary to present a few general features of Laestadianism as a religious movement of the peasant population.