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Skapande av Sakral Mening genom långdistansbaserade fjällmobiliteter: Vita och Gröna Bandet i Sverige
Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of historical, philosophical and religious studies.
2025 (Swedish)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesisAlternative title
Constructing Sacred Meaning Through Longdistance Mountain Mobilities : The White and Green Ribbon in Sweden (English)
Abstract [en]

Long-distance hiking and ski touring in the Scandinavian mountain range have become salient arenas for existential reflection in contemporary Sweden, a context often described as secular yet marked by ongoing negotiations of what may be treated as sacred. While research on pilgrimage, spirituality, and outdoor life has shown how nature and mobility can become sites of sacralisation, it has tended to foreground established pilgrimage routes or everyday outdoor practices. Prolonged, self-organised Nordic mountain traverses remain comparatively under-examined, limiting understanding of how moral orientations and sacred-like significance are constructed. Drawing on eight semi-structured interviews with finishers of the Green Ribbon (summer hiking) and the White Ribbon (winter ski touring), this thesis examines how participants narratively construct and legitimise meaning that carries moral weight and sacred significance. The material is analysed through reflexive thematic analysis within a constructionist epistemology. The analysis is guided by the theoretical perspectives of implicit religion, the secular sacred, and liminality. Across three interrelated themes (recreating community, sacralisation, and implicit religion) the findings suggest that Ribbon mobilities become intelligible for many participants as a form of secular-sacred mobility. Meaning is stabilised through separation from ordinary life, communitas, ritualised finishing practices, portable symbols, and boundary work around authenticity and profanation. The thesis therefore provides a grounded account of how sacred-like moral gravity is produced and negotiated beyond institutional religion in a Swedish post-institutional context.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. , p. 73
Keywords [en]
sacralisation, implicit religion, liminality, meaning-making, postsecularity
National Category
Religious Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-249404OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-249404DiVA, id: diva2:2035144
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Available from: 2026-02-03 Created: 2026-02-03 Last updated: 2026-02-03Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf