Liv I kyrkan (Life in the church): Final Repprt

The objective of this project was to study how three congregations/parishes in three church environments – Odarslövs kyrka (Torn’s parish), Ignaberga nya kyrka (Hässleholm’s parish), and Östra Nöbbelövs kyrka (Simrishamn’s parish) in the Diocese of Lund – could develop the church environments under their auspices in order to increase their accessibility and forms of meaningful use for members of their communities. It did this by working with ethnographic modes of collaborative ethnology and architectural design engagement in which the research team conducted fieldwork (involving participant observations and interviews with members of the churches and their local communities) in each of the three congregations. As part of this collaborative work the project’sfindings have been shared in the fall of 2023 with members of Lund’s diocese as well as members ofTorn’s and Hassleholm’s parishes (The research team reached out to members of Simrishamn’s parishwith a request to come, present, and discuss the project’s findings, but there was no response to thisrequest). Feedback, responses, and suggestions we have received from these collaborative meetings have been incorporated into this final report.

The project was initially scheduled to begin in the spring of 2021. However, the situation withCOVID 19 made this impossible. A large problem centered around the fact that methodologically theproject intended to meet with and interview members of the local communities around the threechurches the project focused upon. Members of the research team did not know anyone living in thelocal communities around the churches in question, and approaching strangers with requests to be interviewed was deemed (against a background in which the Swedish government urged social distancing) by the research team to be ethically irresponsible. For this reason, the project did not startuntil the spring of 2022 after the COVID 19 pandemic had weakened.

This being said, one portion of the project did get under way during the fall of 2021. This involved aMaster’s student, Lorena Barbuleanu, from the Master’s of Applied Cultural Analysis program inethnology at Lund University (in which Gradén and O’Dell are teachers) who conducted a smallerproject that was a part of her education. The project’s point of departure focused on how the Swedishchurch and its activities in Simrishamn were regarded by young people. Over the course of the projectBarbuleanu chose to focus on a series of themes that included belief, trust, and cultural values. Shefound that younger people under the age of 25 felt the greatest distance to the church and to organizedreligion in general. However, amongst the older segment of people she spoke with (those who were40 years old and up) she found a more functionalist orientation to religion and the church. This was adisposition she called functional believers. These were people whose orientation towards the church3and religion was more open and positive in relation to specific topics such as death, life after deathand moral support. Rather than expressing a belief in God, people tended to express a belief insomething that was convenient to the needs in their daily lives at the moment. In order to attract morepeople to the church, Barbuleanu argued for a need for the church to continue to diversify the types ofsocial projects it is engaged in towards trending social issues. This included supporting topicsregarding integration, loneliness, discrimination, and the needs of LGBTQ communities. The peopleshe spoke with who were positively oriented towards the church spoke of its significance in relation tocultural heritage and due to the fact that they perceived the buildings themselves as historical story-tellers and as spaces for opening new forms of cultural exchange. These were qualities which sheargued the church should work more vigorously with. In addition to academic support from Gradénand O’Dell, Barbuleanu also received much help and assistance from vicar Mats Hagelin and othermembers of Simrishamn’s parish. The results of Barbuleanu’s project were presented to members ofthe parish at a meeting sponsored by the church on October 28, 2021.