Practising postcolonial intersectionality: Gender,religion and indigeneity in Sámi social work

Abstract

This article brings to light multiple manifestations of colonial power relations and the interplay of religion and indigenous culture by analysing Sámi women’s experiences of empowerment and subjectivity at the intersections of Firstborn Laestadianism, a conservative religious movement, and Sámi culture. The article argues that if we are to develop culturally sensitive research approaches and practices in social work, it is important to understand and take into account the complexity of religious and ethnic commitments and structures. The article thus deepens the cultural and communal knowledge needed to better inform social work practices and research with indigenous and religious communities.

Keywords

Gender indigeneity intersectionality postcolonial religion Sámi social work

Introduction

This article is based on the retrospective narratives of five Sámi women from Ohcejohka (Utsjoki), a northern indigenous Sámi community on the border of Finland and Norway. The women recall their life experiences and their background in a conservative religious movement, Laestadianism.¹ The movement, and especially one of its strictest forms, Firstborn Laestadianism, the prevalent one in Ohcejohka, is conservative, exclusive and patriarchal and known for its strong ideals of asceticism and pietistic religiosity.² The purpose of this article is to analyse the complex relations of indigenous culture, religion and female gender by remapping spaces and experiences of emancipation, empowerment and agency at the intersections of a patriarchal religious movement and indigenous Sámi culture.

In examining the women’s narratives of subjectivities and empowerment, the article brings to light multiple manifestations of colonial power relations and the interplay of religion and indigenous culture. We ask how and why cultural context matters in social work by analysing the role Laestadian and Sámi spirituality plays in the lives of the Sámi women and interpreting its meanings for social work. We highlight how identifying social problems and solving them, especially when working with religious and ethnic minority groups, requires context-specific empirical knowledge that takes into account the interplay of communities’ power structures and relations. Thus, the research deepens the cultural understanding needed to better inform social work practices and research with indigenous and religious communities.

This knowledge is important where social work seeks to promote the development of local theories and practices by recognising a community’s silent experiences (e.g. Dominelli, 2012). Social work requires multidimensional sensitivity: historical sensitivity is needed in order to grasp the varying concerns of social work and their development; contextual sensitivity is required if one is to understand how people anchor themselves to their environments with complex bonds; while cultural sensitivity directs the researcher’s gaze to the micro-cultural practices of people’s social environments (Pohjola, 2003: 55–7).

Culturally sensitive and safe practices are crucial, especially when working with indigenous peoples (e.g. Dominelli, 2012; Hart, 2010). In the context of doing social work with Sámi communities, Eidheim and Stordahl (1998; Heikkilä, 2014: 33) discuss culturally informed encounters, that is, ones in which cultural perspectives are integrated into professional practices. An important facet of culturally informed encounters is to take into account the religious practices and norms present in people’s everyday lives. Laestadianism has had a strong influence on Sámi communities and continues to impact the social organisation, gender roles and definitions of what is acceptable and unacceptable, including social taboos.

Even though the number of studies focusing on cultural encounters and competences in social work has increased (e.g. Johansson, 2011; Walker, 2005), research is lacking on religion as a contextual factor in cultural encounters. For example, Askeland and Døhlie (2015) claim that religion is hardly discussed in leading books in international social work. In Finland as well, social work research has only recently started paying attention to the questions of religious communality (Hurtig, 2013a: 115). The present research addresses this gap by analysing Sámi women’s narratives.

We view religion as a significant contextual factor in social work, one which, among other things, constructs and explains the interaction between individuals and their social and cultural environments and commitments (see also Askeland and Døhlie, 2015). Religion produces and affirms common values and ethics in a society. It creates rituals and practices in people’s lives, as well as individual meaning and identity. Religions may also be used to oppress or to liberate people both on the societal and individual levels (Askeland and Døhlie, 2015).

We argue that if we are to develop culturally sensitive research approaches and culturally sensitive practices in social work, it is important to understand and take into account the complexity of religious and ethnic commitments and structures; embedded in these are hidden and visible power relations that also affect what it is possible to know and to articulate. In tapping Sámi women’s particular perspectives on their religion, the role and position of women, the Laestadian community and movement and ‘Sáminess’, we bring forth viewpoints that cannot be found in formal histories of the Sámi or Laestadianism or in the majority of feminist postcolonial thought. In analysing the women’s narratives, the research provides unique insights into the knowledge, skills and values that inform Sámi social work.

We first frame the study by discussing postcolonial feminist research, indigenous communities and religion. We then address intersectionality as critical reflection in social work research and practice and describe the research process. The empirical results are presented in terms of two themes: intersections of Laestadian and Sámi spirituality, and finding personal faith. In concluding, we put forward that Sámi social work should be more historically, contextually and culturally sensitive.

Postcolonial feminist research, indigenous communities and religion

In her postcolonial feminist analysis of the situation of Sámi women, Rauna Kuokkanen (2015) calls for the deconstruction of patriarchal practices as part of the process of decolonisation, and names Laestadianism as one of the colonial and patriarchal systems whose legacy feminist critique should scrutinise. She claims that Christianity in general and Laestadianism in particular have played a focal role in creating a patriarchal – and colonial – paradigm in Sámi communities and in imposing an asymmetry of power between the sexes (Kuokkanen, 2007, 2015).³ This has manifested itself especially in the shaping of female sexuality in Sámi cultures, with female sexuality becoming taboo and talk about sex proscribed (Kuokkanen, 2015: 278; see also Valkonen and Wallenius-Korkalo, 2015).

Laestadianism has thus introduced elements into Sámi culture that have had negative effects on the norms that regulate women’s position. We regard Laestadianism as part of the complex colonial relations that structure the self-understanding, mental and societal structures and norms of Sámi communities and thus their everyday life. The movement is an important contextual factor that must be taken into account in trying to understand the contemporary questions of personal identity and well-being among the Sámi people and especially in analysing women’s situation.

Feminist critique depicts Laestadianism as a conservative, patriarchal religion with limited space of action for women. However, a religion can both oppress and empower women, and these contradictory elements can be present simultaneously (Vuola, 1999: 123). Vuola (2010: 172) points out that feminist research, especially that in the social sciences, either views religion as the sole factor determining women’s position or fails to recognise the complexity of religion and its positive meanings in women’s lives. In either case, for lack of an analytical approach, research may bypass women’s agency and proceed with a superficial, homogenising and negative attitude towards religion (Vuola, 2010; see also Hurtig, 2013a).

Feminist studies of religion (e.g. Aune, 2008: 282; Longman, 2007: 78; Vuola, 1999: 112), as well as feminist studies of social work (Dominelli, 2002), call upon scholars to recognise the many voices and the agency of women, instead of automatically labelling religious women as victims. Longman (2007: 79) has pointed out that a closer look at women in fundamentalist contexts – analysing how women themselves interpret their religious identity and tradition in different cultures and societies at different times – reveals that they actually actively negotiate practices and identities that contain the potential for empowerment, autonomy or control.

Until recently research on the Sámi has largely ignored women’s voices and viewpoints. Hirvonen (1999) has argued that research on Sámi society has generally centred on male activities and Sámi men’s conceptions of the culture, thus placing Sámi women in multiple margins. In this light, ‘employing feminist analyses in Sámi research can produce new information about Sámi women’s lives and the hierarchies between the genders’ (Kuokkanen, 2007: 83; see also Lehtola, 2012). A parallel situation is found in the research on Laestadianism, where only recently research has emphasised questions relating to women’s position in the movement (see e.g. Hurtig, 2013a; Kutuniva, 2007).

Our article contributes to social work research by highlighting the importance of postcolonial reasoning. Lehtola has pointed out how in the Finnish context colonisation must not be regarded as an overwhelming force (of settler colonialists) after which the oppressors and the oppressed are easily identifiable. Instead, postcolonial analysis must address the subtle forms of how colonial power has operated on many levels affecting the Sámi peoples’ own practices, reasoning and worldviews (see Lehtola, 2012: 17). Mindful of Ranta-Tyrkkö (2010, 2011), who criticises the lack of wider interest in the postcolonial approach in the field of social work, we deconstruct hegemonic power relations by analysing the social organisation of an indigenous community from the women’s perspective. In doing so, the research both reveals different forms of female agency and considers indigenous ways of knowing and reasoning in the community studied. As Habashi (2005, cited in Ranta-Tyrkkö, 2010: 86) notes, ‘fine ideas of indigenous social work do not work unless oppressive structures of power, in knowledge production as well, are broken down’.

According to Ranta-Tyrkkö (2010: 312), postcolonial theory can offer social work useful hints and clues, especially in tracking past and present oppression, marginalisation and resistance. The workings of power in the Laestadian communities manifest in defining and controlling how individuals must act in relation to the religious community and to larger society (Linjakumpu, 2012: 14–15; Nykänen, 2012). In the case of Sámi women who once lived under the influence of Laestadianism, a postcolonial approach reminds us that Laestadian power structures and mechanisms are not merely things of the past, but rather forces that continue to affect the lives and experiences of these women (cf. Hutcheon, 2003: 18–19; Ranta-Tyrkkö, 2010: 312). From the wider perspective of the colonialism that indigenous peoples have suffered worldwide, colonialism is a matter of both the past and the present, and as an experience it is actively evolving (cf. Hutcheon, 2003: 18–19; Ranta-Tyrkkö, 2010: 312). As Ranta-Tyrkkö (2010) points out, ‘colonial histories keep defining and forming North/West, and are entangled in global and local structures of power and knowledge production, in social work and elsewhere’ (p. 312).

Intersectionality as critical reflection

Characterised as the most important shift in feminist research (Davis, 2008), intersectionality is a way of theorising gender in relation to other differences or social categories, such as race, class, ethnicity, age, religion and sexual orientation (Crenshaw, 1989). It is a way of theorising constructions of identity and selfhood as well as understanding a ‘multiplicity of social, historical, and cultural discourses’ (Mattson, 2014: 10–12).

Recently, intersectionality has been recognised as a useful means of analysis and critical reflection also in social work research and practice. It contributes to the understanding of complex identities and the impacts of social structures on people’s everyday lives and makes it possible to capture the dynamics of power relations and oppression within and among groups (Mattson, 2014: 10, 15). An intersectional approach applied in conjunction with feminist and postcolonial theory offers ways to recognise, explore and potentially transform oppressive structures, which might otherwise remain invisible or normalised as parts of everyday interactions (see Mattson, 2014: 12–13; see also Dominelli, 2002).

In our analysis, we regard Laestadianism and Sámi culture as overlapping cultural orders that are lived and interpreted by the women in the respective religious and indigenous communities. Intersectionality prompts us to explore how individual subjects adjust to and negotiate the power-laden social relations and conditions they are embedded in (cf. Lykke, 2010: 51). We have elsewhere analysed the different forms of control and mechanisms of regulation within Laestadianism influencing Sámi women: the movement’s control over sexuality, dress and behaviour regulates women’s personal experience of whether they are decent and suitable bodily subjects as well as the community’s reaction towards them (Valkonen and Wallenius-Korkalo, 2015).

Instead of focusing on the mechanisms of control and oppression, we opt to highlight the potentially emancipatory and subjectifying experiences the women articulate within the Laestadian tradition, both at the contact points of Sámi culture and Laestadianism, and in the process of separating from the Laestadian community and sphere of influence. Focusing on sources of strength, empowerment, coping mechanisms and the resilience of women does not mean denying or overlooking the regulative or oppressive aspects and impacts of the religion, but rather illuminates the complexity of the interactions at work. The women’s experiences of subjectivity and empowerment can also stem from negative experiences.

Research process

In research on indigenous peoples, ethical questions merit particular attention, given the burden created by the colonialist practices of scientific inquiry itself (see Smith, 1999). The empirical material of the article consists of autobiographical interviews of five Sámi women conducted in 2012 by one of the authors, who is a Sámi herself and has personal knowledge of the Sámi community. The informants were selected through informal conversations with local people, as a result of which people recommended suitable interviewees or one interviewee recommended another. All the women who were approached agreed to be interviewed, giving their consent to participate in the research. They considered the topic important and valued the work for revealing hidden experiences and power structures as well as contributing to healing and decolonising the Sámi communities (see also Kuokkanen, 2007).

The interviewees range in age from 40 to 70 years. All come from the Ohcejohka area but at some point left the Firstborn Laestadian community. The interviews were semi-structured, allowing the women to decide what they wished to highlight and what they did not want to discuss. The autobiographical narratives of the women range from the older women’s childhood memories of the post-Second World War era to accounts describing the present day. These narratives can be regarded as retrospectives on a (colonial) past in which the women reassess the ways in which Laestadianism has impacted them. The interviewees are in a specific position of knowledge: they are partly in, partly out of Laestadianism. They have had to rethink their relationship to the movement and to religion in general and therefore they are able to approach Laestadianism in a reflexive way, allowing different social issues and power structures to be more readily recognisable.

Such autobiographical narratives allow the women to ‘interpret their lives as a whole, within a social context’, telling deeply private stories while raising issues such as ethnicity and religion (Chamberlain and Thompson, 1997: 15). By telling their life stories, they reassess their own his/her stories, with the different episodes, events and experiences they embrace, and relate them to the wider cultural, social and political situations.

Oral autobiography is not history ‘from below’, but history ‘from within’; the knowledge production at work is collaborative, shaped by the intentions of the interviewees and interviewer as well as by the social and cultural context (Chamberlain and Thompson, 1997: 15–16). Producing this kind of material can be seen as a part of the decolonisation process: the women’s stories form a counter-narrative to the hegemonic narratives of both Laestadianism and Sáminess and exemplify oral history from outside of the colonial framework (cf. Lehtola, 2012). The interviewer being a Sámi and therefore sharing a similar cultural background further contributed to creating a safe and confidential situation in which producing critical knowledge from inside the Sámi community became possible. Furthermore, the differences in the interviewer’s and interviewees’ backgrounds, namely the Laestadian heritage, allowed recognising and discussing the intersections and interplay of Sámi culture and Laestadianism. It must however be recognised that these differences may also affect the discussed topics.

In the analysis of the empirical material we ask what kinds of meanings the women give to Laestadianism and Sáminess in their lives, and what kinds of experiences of empowerment or agency they have identified in relation to their womanhood, Sáminess and Laestadianism. To answer this question we examined both the sources of strength emerging from Laestadianism and its internal order, and the subjectivities, empowerments and agencies opening up in the intersections of the various categories and normativities influencing the women’s lives. This analysis then identified two themes for further investigation: intersections of Laestadian and Sámi spirituality, and finding personal faith in rethinking norms. As the research deals with a small and specific community, to protect the interviewees and their anonymity, as well as other people mentioned in their narratives, the women are not described in any particular detail. Similarly, individual interviewees are not identified in any way in the following excerpts.⁴

Results

Intersections of Laestadian and Sámi spirituality

When working with ethnic and religious minorities, from the point of view of culturally sensitive social work practice and research, it is essential to recognise and understand both the various ways well-being may be conceptualised and also various religion and ethnicity-related coping resources. In spite of certain documented negative consequences that a conservative Laestadian community have had for Sámi women’s lives and bodily self-determination (see Kuokkanen, 2007, 2015; Valkonen and Wallenius-Korkalo, 2015), religion and belonging to a religious and indigenous community matters when women experience and conceptualise well-being. In this section, we look at the role that Laestadian and Sámi spirituality plays in the interviewed women’s lives and what kind of coping strategies it may offer.

Women can be empowered by religion and as religious subjects by producing their own interpretations of religious traditions and practices, while attaching their identity to religious tradition (see Hurtig, 2013a). The following case illustrates this kind of situation and also shows how a particular cultural background, Sáminess, may further contribute emancipatory interpretations and forms of agency. An interviewed woman reflects on her relationship to Laestadian heritage and spirituality:

It is a spiritual resource that I don’t have to ask where I’m from or where I’m going. It is a certainty and it has given me a base for existing, making it easy to navigate social relationships, working life and hobbies; it is an important heritage that I have received. (Interview)

The woman felt that she had inherited from her home a strong foundation and knowledge about who she is, but she also stressed that she has always chosen her own path. She believed that the norms of Firstborn Laestadianism may have caused trouble and anxiety for some, but her decisions have always been her own and she has felt comfortable with them. The woman admitted to being religious, and even though she was no longer living in the community she felt that she had not mentally or spiritually detached herself from the movement. Notably, the woman explained part of this by her Sáminess: she believed that the closeness of nature in Laestadius’ sermons, especially in light of the fact that Laestadius himself was of Sámi descent, connected Laestadianism to Sáminess and therefore she felt that the Laestadian faith was close to her. She felt her Sáminess and the Sámi’s close relationship with nature also through Laestadianism.

The interviewee connected her choice to follow her own way to the strength of Sámi women: a Sámi woman does what she likes. The woman felt that Finnish people think it is more important to fulfil the expectations of the community and live according to a given role, whereas a Sámi does what she likes: ‘I think the strength of a person comes out when she thinks differently, when she acts. She just follows her own path’ (interview). In addition to the strength of the Sámi women, the interviewee associated Sáminess with the finding and following of one’s own way to grace: there was grace in knowing that if you were not able to adapt to the norms of Laestadianism, you could do what you wanted. Grace was also the most important doctrine of Laestadianism for her: ‘Grace is not in the hands of a human being. Therefore, we cannot condemn anybody here or judge one person to be more precious than another’ (interview).

This woman’s interpretation also differs significantly from what one might expect in light of the Laestadian practice whereby the congregation has the power to ‘bind’ a person to her sins: when she is a sinner in the eyes of the congregation, she is also a sinner in the eyes of God. The interviewee’s interpretation of grace, as well as her emphasis on personal subjectivity and choices where the rules and norms of Laestadianism are concerned, is enabled by her strong conviction regarding Sáminess: a strong Sámi woman is capable of making personal judgements in relation to the dogmas and norms of Laestadianism. This kind of emancipatory and transgressive gendered religious subjectivity (and personal agency) is enabled by the intersectional position of being a Laestadian Sámi woman; the Sámi identity and its empowering and emancipating potential become more salient in a person’s life than the norms set by the religious patriarchal community. In the Sámi context, it is possible to accept Laestadianism as a personal conviction, while giving up the norms and rules of the movement.

The importance of Sáminess and its cultural practices also came up when the women considered the relationship between Laestadianism and Sámi spirituality. The women were aware of and influenced by both traditions. Laestadius knew well the natural religion of the Sámi, and in his sermons both the Christian and ethnic traditions existed side by side (Pentikäinen, 1995: 305). According to Niittyvuopio, Laestadianism has shaped Sámi religiosity. Among the Sámi, spirituality is not a separate part of life: it is a part of a lifestyle and worldview which include a belief that nothing happens by accident (Niittyvuopio, 2005: 9).

The interviewed women told how the natural religion and its practices were firmly present in spite of the dominance of the Firstborn Laestadian movement. On the one hand, the mythical and mystical elements of natural religion were merged into Laestadianism; on the other, they existed in spite of Laestadianism, along with and hidden from it. The women had been cured by healers, and signs of nature had played an important role in their families. Replying to a question about the old Sámi beliefs and sacred places, an older woman said, ‘They just exist. They remain and that’s it. They don’t have to be expressed or discussed. They just are’ (interview). When asked whether the Sámi considered the beliefs and places sinful because of Laestadianism, she answered, ‘No, and nobody can take them away. They belong to nature and the Sámi do not give a hoot if some preacher has decried them [as sinful]’ (interview).

As Askeland and Døhlie (2015) maintain, ‘When religion is not included as a factor in the understanding of social work and its approaches, important oppression mechanisms or coping resources might be excluded or overlooked, both on an individual and societal level’ (p. 263). The experiences related by the women in this study illustrate the importance of both Laestadian and Sámi spirituality as integral aspects of their well-being and as sources of strength. The Sámi way of conceptualising well-being is connected to the traditional worldview of the people, in which spirituality is intertwined with everyday life experiences and practices (Niittyvuopio, 2005; Pentikäinen, 1995; see also Heikkilä et al., 2013: 49–54). From the perspective of social work research and practice, recognising and taking into account these kinds of contextually and culturally specific individual and social resources is crucial.

Finding personal faith in rethinking norms

Recent research on Laestadian communities has shown how, in addition to supportive and empowering aspects, these communities are also prone to processes and issues that are harmful to individual rights (Hurtig, 2013a: 142; see also Linjakumpu, 2012). Intense communality and claim for doctrinal purity create a network of control which may complicate articulating the negative aspects that people can experience as members of such communities. A direct consequence for social work practice is that the communal connections of different social problems may remain hidden (Hurtig, 2013b: 18–19). In this section, we regard the ways women critically assess the religious heritage of their home community and negotiate their relationship to it.

Female subjectivity in Laestadianism, as in many religions, appears and is interpreted largely within the framework of family and care. The forms of religious subjectivity of Laestadian women are generally described through motherhood; motherhood is a regulated social order and an embodied difference most concretely manifested in the practice of ‘receiving all the children God wills’ (see e.g. Kutuniva, 2007). The interviewees brought up the centrality of the mother figure in Laestadianism: one considered her mother to be a devout Christian precisely because ‘she wanted to give birth to all the children that God was willing to give her’.

Despite the spaces for agency and experiences of subjectivity prevalent within the Laestadian religious framework, especially in family and care, many of the interviewed women recounted the restrictive and even oppressive elements of Laestadianism extensively. Firstborn Laestadianism as introduced in Ohcejohka was very strict, sometimes even brutal. In their narratives, the women brought up the need for thorough research of the taboos and effects of Laestadianism; they even told of cases of sexual violence and abuse. Some of the women regarded Laestadianism as a colonisation of the mind that strongly affects how the women could think about, live and perform their Sámi culture and womanhood (see Valkonen and Wallenius-Korkalo, 2015; see also Helander and Kailo, 1999; Kuokkanen, 2007).

In particular, the women who were not fully committed to the Firstborn Laestadian movement in the Utsjoki area considered the position of women and children in the Laestadian community fragile. For example, an interviewee with a socially precarious background described the community as merciless. These women explained that Laestadianism had limited the space for women and that this contributed to wider emergence of an unfavourable, even hostile, atmosphere and like attitudes towards women. One interviewee regarded the idea of the strong Sámi woman – an emancipatory concept in some cases – as a myth, or at least as a notion coined as a result of having to overcome the many constraints and difficulties posed by both Laestadianism and Sáminess: she described it as ‘a mountain on the top of which every Sámi wife wants to climb sooner or later; some perish on the way; some make it to the top’.

These women talked about ‘the culture of secrecy’ surrounding certain societal issues both in Sámi culture and Laestadianism. Taboo issues related to sexuality and violence, for example, and also many everyday family matters were kept within families or were disregarded altogether (see also Kuokkanen, 2015). The women criticised the sanctimoniousness of the Laestadian community. Nearly all the interviewees, who had very different backgrounds, depicted the Laestadian community as hypocritical. According to their interpretation, Laestadian religious norms were observed merely because of other Laestadians and preachers, not because of personal conviction and faith. In their autobiographical narratives, the women reasoned that it was these elements that led to their separation from the Laestadian community and to their search for alternative paths of religiousness and spirituality (cf. Aune, 2008). The alleged hypocrisy of the Laestadians encouraged the women to make different choices and find their own ways to practice religion:

Well it [Laestadianism] has influenced me in that I have become very righteous and honest as a person. I have wanted to act differently than these so-called believers. I have chosen to live my life exactly as I like; I try not to care about what other people think, and I have made pretty courageous choices considering where I come from. (Interview)

The experience of this woman – stemming from a desire to act differently than those who follow sanctimonious norms – could be described as reverse religious empowerment, which arises precisely from perceiving the community as immoral and hypocritical. Resisting Laestadian religious authority and norms can lead to subversive subjectivity, religious emancipation and agency that protests against the religious matrix of Laestadianism.

One facet of this phenomenon is that women with negative experiences of Laestadianism practised their faith in subtle and personal forms. The religious subjectivity they describe later in their lives appears as religious contemplation, trust in God and communication with God individually, through private rituals rather than in social religious situations.

One of the most important individual religious practices and sources of strength the women discussed was prayer. All the women mentioned that they have found great solace and confirmation of their personal faith in prayer. Prayer has been a source of comfort for them from childhood to adult life, even though not all the memories were good and some of the women were resentful and angry towards the church and Christianity as a whole due to their negative experiences of Laestadianism. One woman related that as a child she was constantly afraid of the sea of fire and the idea of eternity – metaphors used in the Laestadian sermons – and therefore prayed all the time:

Only now have I come to grasp the solace in religion. I was comforted when my mother used to pray when I was a child; but it took me a long time before I taught my own child evening prayers; we created our own when he became afraid at night, and he was comforted by them greatly; but I did not want them at first because I used to be so anxious about eternity. (Interview)

Another woman said that despite her angst towards religion, prayer has remained in her life, providing her support and spiritual comfort:

All these years, even when I have left the church and hated God, hated Jesus and hated all the hypocrites, I have never forsaken prayer. I have had a direct line open up there, despite all the doubts and whatnot; it has been a resource for me that there must be somebody up there. (Interview)

Griffith (2000) underlines the pure religious content of religion in addition to its social significance. The women in her study of charismatic evangelicalism stressed the healing and transforming force of prayer; that through prayer it is possible to feel intimate with God, and by devoting oneself to prayer a woman can change, gain health and become empowered and emancipated. Similar experiences can be found in the autobiographical narratives in this study. For the Sámi women, while praying meant communication with God, upholding their faith and continuing religious tradition in their lives, it also helped in trying to heal some of the traumas they felt were caused by Laestadianism.

Becoming mothers re-signified the women’s relationship with faith and God. Motherhood gave them pause to reconsider their own spirituality as well as the kind of religiosity and Christianity they wanted to pass on to their children. One of the women said that she agreed to be interviewed precisely because she had recently become a mother and she felt the need to contemplate and discuss her problematic and even embittered relation to Laestadianism and Christianity. She also reflected on the inclusion of Sámi tradition in religious practices:

I became a mother […] and I have been thinking what I want for my child, what kind of connection I want to create to Christianity […] Before I was pregnant I was really adamant that I would never go back to the church, and all my friends also left the church, doors slamming; but after their children were born, each and every one of them sneaked back in, me included, and the children have been baptised – but with the water from a Sámi sacred spring. So there was something radical, and the priest knew the water was from the sacred spring. (Interview)

The above examples illustrate the importance of deconstructing the prevailing cultural imaginaries, such as the myth of the strong Sámi woman or that of a Laestadian mother, which can hinder recognising and tackling individual and social problems. In the Sámi context, well-being is often conceptualised as coping well and as having culturally specific resources and strategies for a good life (see Heikkilä et al., 2013: 49–54). From the social work perspective, while it is necessary to recognise the subtle and private resources that spirituality provides for well-being and coping, the norm and expectation, a ‘culture of coping’, should not be taken for granted.

Deeply private stories such as those told in the present interviews raise issues of Sámi culture and religion related to wider cultural, social and political situations and questions. These include the persistence of certain mental structures and everyday practices into which people are socialised but may experience as constricting and even harmful. This is particularly prominent in the processes of self-identification that unfold when one renegotiates one’s religious commitments and relationship to the community.

Conclusion

Women’s religious subjectivity and agency have been marginalised both in their religions and in research concerning religion (Braude, 2008: 1; see also Vuola, 2010: 176). Our article has addressed the gap in knowledge about religion as a contextual factor among cultural encounters in Sámi social work. We have analysed the intersections of gender, Sáminess and Laestadianism not as spaces of multiple oppressions, but as productive positions that offer emancipatory potential for developing transgressive subject positions and strategies of empowerment and resilience (see Staunӕs and Søndergaard, 2011: 51–3). We have discussed the importance of learning about and including people’s religion in social work practice and argued that if we are to develop culturally sensitive research approaches and practices in social work, it is essential to pay attention to the complexity of religious and ethnic commitments and structures, for these may sustain power relations, some hidden, some visible.

The article illustrates the complex of colonial relations and Laestadianism as an integral factor that still affects people’s everyday lives in the community. It also indicates how Laestadianism is not only a religion, but a social environment which is deeply intertwined with the social relations and cultural norms in the Sámi communities (see also Helander and Kailo, 1999; Kuokkanen, 2014). Laestadian religion and indigenous spirituality arise from and interact in the same transcultural environment. Separating Sámi tradition from Laestadian tradition might even be impossible (see Kuokkanen, 2015).

Empowerment is often understood narrowly, and the ways in which religion empowers women are easily bypassed in feminist research (Vuola, 2010: 180). By telling their stories – identifying and conceptualising the spaces and practices in which they have experienced empowerment and agency – the women in this study are describing their past and present subjectivities. These are uniquely intersectional: lived, produced and enabled intersections of Sámi culture, Laestadianism and womanhood.

The article argues that being a Sámi woman in Firstborn Laestadianism is not a fixed subject position. The Sámi women interviewed for this research practice their faith in multiple ways by interpreting the norms of Firstborn Laestadianism in their own ways, and by transgressing them. The relevance of the cultural practices and mental structures of Sáminess as forms of resilience enables Sámi women to overstep the traditional subject positions of Laestadian women.

Sámi social work needs to pay attention to the multiplicity of Sáminess: Sámi culture and communities are pervaded by a range of relations and traditions, making it important to identify internal differences and multiple subject positions. Contextual and historical awareness calls for sensitivity, a critical realisation that one must not make any category – Sámi identity, religiousness, gender – the sole frame of reference when working with the Sámi. In social work research and social work in Sámi communities, practice must incorporate the specific local circumstances and understandings if it is to promote culturally informed encounters (Eidheim and Stordahl, 1998; Heikkilä, 2014). The religious practices and norms present in women’s everyday lives would be a focal consideration in such culturally sensitive practice and in supporting Sámi women from their point of view.

Footnotes

Funding

Conducting the interviews was supported by the Academy of Finland funded project Laestadian-ism: Political Theology and Civil Religion in Secularizing Finland (132693) 2010–2012.

Notes

Author biographies

Sanna Valkonen holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Lapland, Finland, where she works as an associate professor of Sámi research. Her PhD thesis (2009) was published by Vastapaino under the title Poliittinen saamelaisuus (Political Sáminess). Ms Valkonen is interested in the politics of ethnicity and indigeneity as well as gender and religion. Her particular area of specialisation is the Sámi. Her present research deals with ethnic and indigenous differentiation in postcolonial Lapland.

Sandra Wallenius-Korkalo is a junior researcher in Political Studies at the University of Lapland, Finland. She is currently writing her PhD on the body politics of continuity and change in the Laestadian revivalist movement. Her research interests include Northern culture and social change, religion and gender, representation and embodiment, and politics of memory. She was co-editor of Progress or Perish (2010), a volume of multidisciplinary research on the European North published by Ashgate, and co-editor-in-chief of Kosmopolis, the journal of the Finnish Peace Research Association. She has also worked as a member of several research projects on the interrelation of art and social science.

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