Back to Blood: Pursuing a Future from the Norse Past

Vikings are more popular than ever before. "Back to Blood: Pursuing a Future from the Norse Past" (BTB) seeks to understand why. Our hypothesis is that the manufacturing of cultural and spiritual products related to Vikings and the Norse past is connected to concerns for sustainability, identity, and citizenship. For some, it represents a spiritual longing for a sustainable future, where new models of spiritual interaction inspire eco-citizenship ? new, green ways of living and relating. For others, masculinized and white power aspects of heathenry, bloodlines and national identities are central. These pose threats to peaceful and egalitarian solutions to global challenges of resource scarcity and inequality. We will explore which products and motivations occur where, and why. That is, we will map how and explain why current concerns of sustainability, identity and citizenship lead to increasing cultural and spiritual demand for Vikings and the Norse past, and the consequences of various cultural actors supplying that demand. In 2023, the project group has been focuing on data collection, analysis, and publication. Several articles have been published, and more are underway. Two books are being written as well. One book proposal has been submitted and a received an offer from an internationally recognized publisher, while another is currently under construction. We have also contributed to research dissemination, given academic and popular lectures in schools, museums, podcasts, and other media. Beyond that, we have also communicated our research on national and international conferences.

Vikings are more popular than ever before. Back to Blood: Pursuing a Future from the Norse Past (BTB) seeks to understand the cultural, political, and spiritual reasons for and consequences of the increasing demand for products related to Vikings and the Norse past. Our hypothesis is that the manufacturing of cultural and spiritual products related to Vikings and the Norse past is connected to concerns for sustainability, identity, and citizenship. By extension, this represents a spiritual longing for a sustainable future, where new models of spiritual interaction inspire eco-citizenship – new, green ways of living and relating. At the same time, masculinized and white power aspects of heathenry, bloodlines and national identities pose threats to peaceful and egalitarian solutions to global challenges of resource scarcity and inequality. We will explore which motivations occur where, and why. Our research group is interdisciplinary, and employs the Norse past popularity as a prism through which we offer five case studies. Methodologically innovative in design, the multimodal case studies integrate digital, archival and ethnographic material to uncover the motivations and consequences of cultural productions that involve the imagination of Vikings and the Norse past. By researching festivals and soundscapes, digital media and spiritual movements, museum and educational use of archaeology, history and reenactment, and martial arts’ relation to gender, identity, and far-right groups, we cover both breadth and depth in this expanding, global phenomenon. Testing our hypothesis will unlock informed ways of understanding the role of Vikings and the Norse past in radicalization processes, by increasing our knowledge of the cultural symbols and myths that support radicalization. Our findings will enable stakeholders and end-user to engage in informed and constructive ways with the popular craving for a Norse past, possibly opening up to new solutions for sustainable living.