Mission before Colonization. Towards a non-lachrymose history of religious contact in Greenland and Sápmi, 1000-1700
Prehistory and World Archaeology
Final Report Abstract
The project explored the interactions between Christian Scandinavians and Indigenous Arctic and Fennoscandian peoples between 1000 and 1700. Rather than reinforcing traditional narratives of religious conversion as a process of domination, the project sought to highlight mutual agency and negotiation in these encounters. By applying interdisciplinary methodologies, including historical semantics, archaeology, and textual analysis, the research provided a more nuanced understanding of medieval cultural exchange. One of the project’s key contributions was its challenge to anachronistic interpretations of medieval missionary efforts. Instead of viewing religious contact as inherently colonial, the study demonstrated that conversion processes often unfolded over long periods, without signs of coercion. The project also examined how ethnic categories were constructed in medieval texts, showing that ethnic categories was more frequently defined by geography, culture, and lifestyle than by ancestry or somatic markers. Through the integration of postcolonial and Indigenous research methodologies, the project team reinterpreted the role of Indigenous agency in religious transformations, particularly in the case of the Saami people. The application of concepts such as "double consciousness" and "thirding" offered alternative readings of medieval conversion narratives, revealing the complexities of identity negotiation. The project’s findings contribute to ongoing scholarly debates about race and colonialism in medieval studies, offering a critical reassessment of long-standing assumptions. The archival situation at Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu created some unforeseen challenges for the implementation of the archaeological component of WP2. As a result, WP2 was changed significantly to focus more the “Indigenous Turn of Medieval Studies”, Indigenous historiography, conversion of Saami people, and the implementation of postcolonial theory to these concepts. The impossibility to use this project and the project funding to create reciprocal relations with Indigenous communities was not ideal, as frequently claimed by Indigenous activists and scholars. Solveig Marie Wang participated as an expert panel member at the panel discussion “Samisk middelalder. Hva vi vet og hvorfor vi vet så lite” [The Saami Middle Ages. What we know and why we know so little] hosted by Nationalbiblioteket (the National Library of Norway) in October 2024. The panel discussion was incredibly popular and was livestreamed both online and to public libraries in Sápmi. In connection with this, she was interviewed by the Saami newspaper Ságat.
Publications
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Decolonising Medieval Fennoscandia. De Gruyter.
Wang, Solveig Marie
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Margaretas periphere Visionen. Mission, Kolonisierung und „race“ im Spätmittelalter am Beispiel der Saami. Historische Zeitschrift, 316(1), 1-26.
Heß, Cordelia
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Medieval Literature and Saami in the South. Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 19, 225-255.
Wang, Solveig Marie
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Saami Magic in Medieval Texts: Magical Other(ing)s and Questions of Terminology. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic, 7-27. Springer Nature Switzerland.
Wang, Solveig Marie
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The intersection of medieval studies and Indigenous studies: A Norse-Saami case study. postmedieval, 15(1), 119-150.
Wang, Solveig Marie
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Chapter 4 Saami Conversion and Identity Negotiation in the Medieval Period. Colonial Entanglements and the Medieval Nordic World, 109-132. De Gruyter.
Wang, Solveig Marie
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Colonial Entanglements and the Medieval Nordic World. De Gruyter.
Heß, Cordelia; Wang, Solveig Marie & Wolf, Erik
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Colonialism’s Before and After. Norse – Saami relations during the Middle Ages. Baltic Peripeties, 185-200. V&R unipress.
Heß, Cordelia
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Rassismus im Norden?. De Gruyter.
Heß, Cordelia
