Kristina Helgesson Kjellin introduces her book A Good Place to Be. An Anthropological Study of Diversity Work and Identity formation in the Church of Sweden with the story of how a small Marian side altar suddenly appears in a church in the suburb Skärholmen outside Stockholm. This type of side altar, common in Catholic and Orthodox Churches, is usually not seen in the Lutheran Church of Sweden. Its appearance in the suburban church can be related to the presence of migrant communities with their roots in other (Christian) traditions, members of which today make up a considerable part of the churchgoers in Sweden. The story of how the side altar became integrated in this Swedish church is one of the examples offered by Helgesson Kjellin of the multifaceted encounters between the tradition of the Church of Sweden and different migrant communities. Through ethnographic studies of such encounters, Helgesson Kjellin aims to illuminate what she refers to as “diversity work” [mångfaldsarbete]. As the term can signify the promotion of diversity regarding a range of categories such as gender, age, sexuality, functionality, ethnicity and religion, the author clarifies that her focus is the “cultural and religious diversity, mainly the Christian diversity” p.15) that characterize the congregations she has studied. These all belong to a network named “The future lives with us” [Framtiden bor hos oss] formed in 2001 by congregations in a number of urban centers in Sweden around a common vision of the Church of Sweden as “a church for everyone, irrespective of cultural and/or religious background” (p. 15). Fieldwork was conducted among employees and volunteers active in the network, with a special focus on the church in Skärholmen.

The criteria for joining the network is to be a minority congregation (meaning that less than 70% of the inhabitants are members of the Church of Sweden) and to be located in an urban, culturally and religious diverse community. An important feature of these congregations is that in spite of low numbers of members, the level of activity is high with many people coming to the church to pray, to ask for aid and to attend church services. For the churches in the network the burning issue is how to be relevant in their communities under these conditions, including the economic challenge for a post-state church that now depends on membership fees.

Two parallel, interrelated waves of interest in pilgrimage on foot has surged in Sweden since the 1990s: participation in the international Camino pilgrimage and a vernacular pilgrimage movement in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden. In this article, the interconnections between the two strands are explored. In both settings, attention is paid primarily to walking itself, illustrating a key facet of Caminoization: the stress on the journey rather than the destination. It is argued here that the pilgrimage walks in the Church of Sweden are modeled on a Caminoized notion of pilgrimage, built into the Swedish word pilgrimsvandring. This notion of pilgrimage functions as an open category that can connect to both religious heritages and social and cultural trends in new ways. A key outcome of the spread of Caminoized pilgrimage is the rise of a pilgrim spirituality that celebrates simplicity and communing with nature, and carries with it a cultural critique of postindustrial society, further accentuated in the pilgrimage movement’s recent turn to ecology and climate action.

The author of this article discusses the ways in which gender equality and intersectionality are understood and enacted in two recent feminist campaigns in Sweden that use similar techniques to mobilise support for different causes. The first campaign is the so-called Hijab Call-to-Action, a solidarity action that took place in 2013 in which women in Sweden wore a hijab (the Muslim headscarf) for one day in defence of Muslim women's rights. This campaign manifests the ways in which the notion of gender equality brings with it a norm of secularity, but also how the equation of equality and secularity is contested. The second feminist campaign discussed is the so-called Pussy Bow Blouse manifestation that aimed at taking a stand in the controversies surrounding the Swedish Academy as a result of the Metoo campaign in Sweden. The author looks at the political and discursive processes enfolded in these campaigns as a sort of collective learning processes that connect feminist activism and scholarship. A key concern is to critically analyse a binary model of powerless versus gender-equal or feminist women that figure in both debates. Further, the author shows that both campaigns appeal to solidarity through identification, but at the same time underscore the contingent and coalitional nature of identity in the act of dressing in a scarf or a blouse to take on a (political) identity for a day.

This article discusses the meanings ascribed to the pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Fátima by mainly female Portuguese pilgrims. The article builds on ethnographic fieldwork in Vila Branca, a small pseudonymous town on the northwestern coast of Portugal. The author shows how women’s interpretation of the Fátima shrine is deeply embedded in local forms of Marian devotion, in particular the practice of making vows to Mary. It is argued that the vow can be understood as a healing ritual (carried out by both women and men) and that the predominance of female pilgrims at Fátima mirrors their responsibilities as mothers and housewives to secure the health and well-being of others. The article describes a typical, popular pilgrimage journey from Vila Branca to Fátima, undertaken by bus in a large group. The journey includes various elements of the typical Portuguese festa, as well as the ritual reenactment of Mary’s apparition in a farewell ceremony manifesting the materiality and visual aspects of popular religious experience. Furthermore, the author discusses the various tensions between orthodox and popular interpretations of Fátima, one of which centers around the belief in the materialization of divine power in the form of an ordinary woman.

The fields of gender and religious studies have often been criticized for neglecting to engage with one another, and this volume responds to this dearth of interaction by placing the fields in an intimate dialogue. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach and drawing on feminist scholarship, the book undertakes theoretical and empirical explorations of relational and co-constitutive encounters of gender and religion. Through varied perspectives, the chapters address three interrelated themes: religion as practice, the relationship between religious practice and religion as prescribed by formal religious institutions, and the feminization of religion in Europe.

The introduction points out how until recently the relationship between feminist studies and studies of religion has been marked by mutual blindness. In the present moment of encounter between the fields, the veiled Muslim woman is at the center of attention. In critical response to the view of “the religious woman” as the epitome of female submission, feminist theorists argue that new approaches to agency, power and resistance are needed. The authors of this introduction show, however, that these debates are not new in the study of gender and religion, and point to significant continuities in feminist theorizing. The volume engages with the post-secular turn by opening the door to gendered religious and spiritual worlds in present-day Europe. Furthermore, the continuing relevance of concepts such as religion as practice and the feminization of religion in Europe are stressed.