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To choose a terminology for an investigation of shamanism in contemporary Norway is not entirely without problems. Many shamans are adamant in rejecting the term religion in connection with their practices and choose broader rubrics when describing what they believe in. When shamanism was approved as an official religion by the Norwegian government in 2012, the tensions ran high, and many shamanic practitioners refused to accept the connection between religion and shamanism. This chapter provides an account of the emic categories and connections used today by shamanic entrepreneurs and others who share these types of spiritual beliefs. In particular, the advantages and disadvantages of the term religion and how it is deployed on the ground by shamans in Norway will be highlighted.

This text examines Sami shamanism in Norway as a uniquely distinctive local manifestation of a global new religious phenomenon. It takes the diversity and hybridity within shamanic practices seriously through case studies from a Norwegian setting and highlights the ethnic dimension of these currents, through a particular focus on Sami versions of shamanism.

This book examines Sámi shamanism in Norway as a uniquely distinctive local manifestation of a global new religious phenomenon. Based on more than ten years of ethnographic research, the book provides the basis for a study revealing the development of inventiveness, nuances and polyphony that occur when a global religion of shamanism is merged in a Norwegian setting, colored by its own political and cultural circumstances.

In 1973, the exhibition entitled Samekulturen (The Sámi Culture) opened its doors to the public for the first time, and for over forty years this exhibition has served as an important arena for the dissemination of Sámi culture to tourists, students and other visitors. Exhibitions have social and political consequences. Samekulturen as a social actor that contributes to the production of knowledge is the point of departure for this paper. In the view of the museological and ethno-political contexts in which Samekulturen was produced, the exhibition will be analysed as a historical document revealing how museological practices related to the representation of the Sámi have evolved over time. ; In 1973, the exhibition entitled Samekulturen (The Sámi Culture) opened its doors to the public for the first time, and for over forty years this exhibition has served as an important arena for the dissemination of Sámi culture to tourists, students and other visitors. Exhibitions have social and political consequences. Samekulturen as a social actor that contributes to the production of knowledge is the point of departure for this paper. In the view of the museological and ethno-political contexts in which Samekulturen was produced, the exhibition will be analysed as a historical document revealing how museological practices related to the representation of the Sámi have evolved over time.

A cultural turn in the economy has led to growth in what might be called 'spiritual entrepreneurship'.1 This term refers to entrepreneurs inspired by a New Age philosophy marketing spiritual values such as 'self-development', 'holism' and 'deep values'. To shed light on this type of enterprise, the article examines one of its practitioners; Esther Utsi at Polmakmoen Guesthouse in northern Norway. My focus is on how New Age spirituality is here localized, wrapped in local indigenous culture and landscape, and turned into a commodity with market value for both tourists and conference participants. The staging of spirituality simultaneously involves marketing a vaca- tion destination to outsiders, and is also linked to the formation of a reimagined local identity, and incorporated into the redefinition of images and dreams about the northern region. Keywords: spiritual entrepreneurship, New Age, tourism, indigenous spirituality, local reinvention

This volume takes its starting point in shamanism in the Nordic countries and explores expressions and the lives of shamanic materialities in contemporary Finland and Norway. Shamans interact with spiritual powers and beings, but their religious practices unfold in a material reality. In this 'Element', then, we begin with the materiality of shamanism and focus on how the drum, the sacrificial site, the power animal, and a mushroom bridge the gap between the profane and the divine and create networks and dynamics in a shamanic worldview as well as in the wider society. Throughout its sections, the authors inquire into the ways the construction of the category shamanism makes shamanic materialities come to life.

This Special Issue of Religions approaches "Sámi religion" from a long-term perspective seeing both the past religious practices and contemporary religious expressions as aspects of the same phenomena. This does not refer, however, to a focus on continuity or to a static or uniform understanding of Sámi religion. Sámi religion is an ambiguous concept that has to be understood as a pluralistic phenomenon consisting of multiple applications and associations and widely differing interpretations, and that highlights the complexities of processes of religion-making. In a historical perspective and in many contemporary contexts (such as museum displays, media stories, as well as educational programs) the term Sámi religion is mostly used as a reference to Sámi pre-Christian religious practices, to Laestadianism, a Lutheran revival movement that spread among the Sámi during the 19th Century, and last but not least to shamanism. In this issue, we particularly aim to look into contemporary contexts where Sámi religion is expressed, consumed, and promoted. We ask what role it plays in identity politics and heritagization processes, and how different actors connect with distant local religious pasts—in other words, in which contexts is Sámi religion activated, by whom, and for what?