Introduction

This chapter is about contemporary articulations of indigenous religion(s). Building on long-term case studies, it foregrounds collaboration and comparison. The aim has been to chart a path that yields something more and different than is possible through solitary research pursuits. The INREL project began in 2014. It arose from sustained conversations over several years between Siv Ellen Kraft and Bjorn Ola Tafjord. From their interaction Kraft and Tafjord learnt three lessons that they tried to build into the INREL project. The first was the fruitfulness of friction – and thus the worth of bringing together scholars with diverse backgrounds, working on different but comparable traditions. The second lesson was the value of committed collaboration over time, which makes it possible to move beyond polite conversation and actually learn from encounters, both between ourselves as scholars and with people in our field sites. The third lesson concerned the need to take comparison seriously.