Search results for "Sámi"

‘Where the F… is Vuotso?’ : heritage of Second World War forced movement and destruction in a Sámi reindeer herding community in Finnish Lapland

2017

In this paper we discuss the heritage of the WWII evacuation and the so-called ‘burning of Lapland’ within a Sámi reindeer herding community, and assess how these wartime experiences have moulded, and continue to mould, the ways people memorialise and engage with the WWII material remains. Our focus is on the village of Vuotso, which is home to the southernmost Sámi community in Finland. The Nazi German troops established a large military base there in 1941, and the Germans and the villagers lived as close neighbours for several years. In 1944 the villagers were evacuated before the outbreak of the Finno-German ‘Lapland War’ of 1944–1945, in which the German troops annihilated their militar…

Touring the magical North : Borealism and the indigenous Sámi in contemporary English-language children’s fantasy literature

2017

Discourses of exotic Lapland with its indigenous inhabitants, the Sámi, are widely circulated in the tourist industry and also surface in contemporary English-language children’s fantasy fiction. In contrast to the ‘self-orientalism’ of discourses of tourism, where places and people are represented as exotic to a tourist gaze, the portrayals of the North and its inhabitants gain different symbolic meanings in fictional texts produced by outsiders who rely on earlier texts – myths, fairy tales and anthropological accounts – rather than on their own lived experience of the North or indigeneity. This article applies the concept of Borealism to examine cross-cultural intertextuality and discou…

«We must go in the same direction» : Understanding the promotion of the Northern Sámi language in Gáivuotna/Kåfjord and Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino in a…

2019

Master's thesis Innovative governance and public management ME523 - University of Agder 2019 The general endangered status of indigenous languages worldwide is a reality that demands quick action from authorities belonging to different governmental spheres to safeguard their use, protection and further development for the next generations. In viewof the complexity of this issue, which stretches itself over public sectors such as health and education, public and private actors have sought to join forces to guarantee the promotion of indigenous languages. Hence, this thesis aims to understand how the existence of different actors within a multi-governance system can enable the promotion of th…

Landscapes of loss and destruction: : Sámi elders’ childhood memories of the second world war

2019

The so-called Lapland War between Finland and Germany at the end of the Second World War led to a mass-scale destruction of Lapland. Both local Finnish residents and the indigenous Sámi groups lost their homes, and their livelihoods suffered in many ways. The narratives of these deeply traumatic experiences have long been neglected and suppressed in Finland and have been studied only recently by academics and acknowledged in public. In this text, we analyze the interviews with four elders of one Sámi village, Vuotso. We explore their memories, from a child’s perspective, scrutinizing the narration as a multilayered affective process that involves sensual and embodied dimensions of memory. ©…

Multilingual dynamics in Sámiland: Rhizomatic discourses on changing language

2013

Multilingualism in indigenous language communities brings forth tensions and creativity related to language change. In this article, taking dynamic multilingual indigenous Sámi language practices as a focus of ethnographic and discourse analytical research, I examine rhizomatic discourses on changing language in multilingual Sámi spaces. Based on longitudinal research on multilingualism in Sámiland, I will argue that the interlinked discourses of endangerment, commodification and carnivalisation simultaneously circulate across Sámi spaces, and structure language practices and experiences. Furthermore, multilingual dynamics can lead to both contestation and creativity in language practices,…

Investing in indigenous multilingualism in the Arctic

2018

Abstract This article explores the dynamics between language and identity categories and the boundaries produced in a changing multilingual, indigenous context in the Arctic region of Finland. In this moment of transition, indigenous multilingualism has high stakes. It can be a resource for political and economic development but also for management and regimentation, open to winners and losers. Drawing on a longitudinal critical discourse ethnography of producing language and identity categories in the Finnish Arctic, I discuss three circulating discourses relevant for the ways in which indigenous identity boundaries are made to matter, namely strategic, aspirational and affective multiling…

Language: A Challenging Resource in a Museum of Sámi Culture

2015

Choices made around using language in museums can either reinforce or challenge existing common sense language regimes and cultural hegemonies. The issues around linguistic choices are particularly pronounced for a museum of indigenous culture in a multilingual minority language community. Using the case of the Siida, the National Museum of the Finnish Sami, located in Inari, in Finnish Samiland, we explore some of the issues involved in using language in the museum. Based on a linguistic landscape analysis, we identify three main functions of language in the museum: managing and controlling visitors; narrating and explaining content and being displayed as content/exhibit. We discuss these …

From a school task to community effort: children as authors of multilingual picture books in an endangered language context

2014

“I sámifize it...” : Preschool in the Centre of South Sámi Language and Culture Learning in Norway

2022

For an Indigenous population, there is a need for an inclusive educational space from the language and culture srevitalisation perspective. This is especially important during the early years when the basics of the language are formed alongside cultural knowledge. This paper takes a closer look at a South Sami preschool language learning environment through the lenses of teachers. The South Sami (South Saami) is the southernmost Sami population, frequently described as a minority within the minority. The estimation for South Sami speakers in Norway is around 300, making the language severely endangered This paper aims to take a closer look at how early childhood education teachers describe …

Ethically ethnic: the ethno-culturalization of the moral conduct of the Sámi and the Roma in the governance in Finland between the 1850s and 1930s

2015

Although there was not a focused administration on ethnic minorities in Finland until the last decades of the 20th century, there was variety of rationalities, techniques and practices of governance used for their conduct. In this article I analyze how the governance of the Roma and the Sámi – two biggest minorities at the time – changed after mid-1800s, when the new understanding, the ethno-cultural one, on population diffused among administration and governing bodies. This Foucauldian analysis concentrates on the descent of this ‘event’, the social and political conditions of its mergence, and the actual changes it meant in the governance of these minorities. peerReviewed