Knowing from the Indigenous North: Sámi Approaches to History, Politics and Belonging

Description

Focusing on the Sápmi region of Northern Europe as a point of departure, this book enriches and sharpens the concept of 'the North.' It combines detailed empirical research on the Sámi people and their life-worlds with theoretical contributions from leading scholars. The authors consider the European North not only as a geographical site or an object of academic research, but as a particular way of knowing and being, with its own needs, practices, concepts, and imaginings. The North, as an epistemic position, offers its own conceptions of politics, human agency, history, and social relations, which this book studies and describes. The volume challenges us to consider social scientific knowledge, its significance, and the practices of producing it in a new way. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of contents Notes on contributors Part I On knowing from the North 1 Introduction Searching the mysterious core of Kaldoaivi Not where but what is the North? The gaze of the book: northern spectacles Overview of this volume References 2 On local knowledge Tradition Place and local Knowledge and beliefs References Part II Histories from North 3 Evasive strategies of defiance – everyday resistance histories among the Sámi Introduction Preferring not to – withdrawal and silence as strategies Blurring control Messaging defiance Institutions in conflict Conclusions Notes References Archive sources Interviews Media sources 4 Returning home – the different ontologies of the Sámi collections Introduction The Sámi collections of the National Museum of Finland – older than the Finnish nation The Sámi Duodji Association – the guardian of heritage Contact zone or conflict zone? Spiritual meaning – you see with your hands Inspiration and getting duodji back to the roots Conclusions Notes Interviews Archive material References 5 The paradox of autonomy References Part III Knowing our place and lifeworld 6 Belonging to Sápmi – Sámi conceptions of home and home region Introduction Breakdown of the siida system – changes in the Sámi home region Sápmi as a political institution Unseen cultural environment – unseen Sápmi? Gákti: message bearer of home and home region Concluding words Note References 7 Reindeer herding, snowmobile and social change – and a word on identity Introduction Bigger than a machine – how does the snowmobile shape life? Time and change Livelihood modified Knowledge and skills Social relations Landscape transformation Discussion: preferring doing over being References 8 The North is everywhere North, south, east and west History from … Environment Movement Narrative References Part IV On indigeneity, politics and governance 9 ‘I’ll show you the tundra’ – the Sámi as an Indigenous people in the political thought of Nils-Aslak Valkeapää Greetings from Lappland Interviews in the early 1970s Activities in the international Indigenous movement Trekways of Wind Sáminess and Arctic people in Valkeapää’s thinking Notes References 10 Conceptual governance on defining indigeneity – the Sámi debate in Finland Introduction The historical Lapp population On defining a Sámi in Finland Reconceptualising Indigenous subjectivity: the emergence and argumentation of the Lapp movement Struggle over the right to become recognised: the emergence and argumentation of the forest Lapp/Sámi movement Conclusions Notes References 11 The politics of belonging in the Indigenous North ‘Identity rules – and rules out’ Belonging The Sámi and belonging The politics of belonging The politics of Sámi belonging Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index