WIVA seminar series, 2 december, 2025

This talk offers a detailed exploration of the construction of religious identity, using the pre-Christian Norse world as a foundational case of study. It argues that identity is not an innate or static attribute but a dynamic cultural process, built collectively through shared narratives, ritual practices, and symbolic frameworks. The analysis is informed by theoretical approaches akin to Almudena Hernando’s (a Spanish archaeologist) concept of the “archaeology of identity" which emphasize how human communities actively order and represent their reality to create a stable worldview.

Applying this lens to the Scandinavian context reveals a society where religious identity was predominantly collective and experiential. In the Norse world, the sacred was not a separate sphere of dogmatic belief but a pervasive dimension of daily life, deeply embedded in social structures, legal customs, and the domestic sphere. The research addresses the significant methodological challenge posed by the available sources (primarily later Christian texts and ambiguous material culture) advocating for a critical approach that reads these evidences against the grain to recover a more nuanced understanding.

Central to the argument is the metonymic nature of Norse symbolism, where the sacred was perceived as an integral and irreplaceable part of the tangible world. This understanding provided ontological security, anchoring the community's identity in a coherent cosmos. Ultimately, the Norse example demonstrates that religious identity functions as a form of practical, lived knowledge, continuously shaped and reshaped by a community's interaction with its environment and its enduring need to forge meaning in a changing world.

Dag: 2 december, 2025

Plats: Uppsala Eng/22-0031

Tid: 13:15-15:00

Föreläsare: Rodrigo Carreño Muñiz
University of Madrid.