New book: “An Urban Future for Sápmi?”

mikbn on 21. January 2022

Presenting the political and cultural processes that occur within the indigenous Sámi people of North Europe as they undergo urbanization, this book examines how they have retained their sense of history and culture in this new setting. The book presents data and analysis on subjects such as indigenous urbanization history, urban indigenous identity issues, urban indigenous youth, and the governance of urban “spaces” for indigenous culture and community. The book is written by a team of researchers, mostly Sámi, from all the countries covered in the book.

Read more about the book and order it here.

Read the introductory chapter for free: Urbanization and Indigenousness by Mikkel Berg-Nordlie, Astri Dankertsen, and Marte S. Winsvold.


Contributors in alphabetic order: Anna Andersen, Chris Andersen, Mikkel Berg-Nordlie, Astri Dankertsen, Marthe Winsvold.

Editors: Berg-Nordlie, Dankertsen, and Winsvold.

Reviews

“I am very impressed… The book is well-written, analytically sound and solid, has a really good empirical basis, and presents some lines of argument that are both innovative and interesting. Adding the Russian Sámi context to the bigger field of Sámi studies is really called for, and gives important insights.” 
• Torjer Olsen, Arctic University of Norway

“The book is very interesting, well written and relevant. I found it entirely fascinating and educational, and could see a lot of connections to issues that other urban Indigenous groups across the globe face.” 
• Kelly Greenop, University of Queensland

Example images from “An urban future for Sápmi?”

New article: “No Past, No Name, No Place? Urban Sámi Invisibility and Visibility in the Past and Present”

mikbn on 21. January 2022

In Aboriginal policy studies Vol. 9, no. 2, 2021, Mikkel Berg-Nordlie “explores the broad erasure of Sámi from urban landscapes, focusing in particular on their urban invisibility with respect to Sámi place names and the absence of “places of remembrance” for Sámi history.” (Chris Andersen, editor).

The article is available for free here: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/aps/index.php/aps/article/view/29395/21417

New article: “Safeguarding Cultural Rights of Sámi Children and Youth in Finland”

mikbn on 18. December 2019

An article about the cultural rights of indigenous young people that has special emphasis on the linguistic aspect of cultural identity.

Article published in The Yearbook of Polar Law by Tanja L. Joona of U. Lapland and the NUORGÁV project.

ABSTRACT

The article examines the common global phenomenon of indigenous urbanization. In Finland, more than 75% of the indigenous Sámi children are born outside the Sámi Homeland area. The development is fast and poses different kind of challenges for the entire Sámi society and culture. Youth and women are more likely to settle in urban areas and it is their Sáminess that is to survive or die in the cities. Indigenousness is no longer tied with traditional livelihoods or land use but instead requires other forms of cultural maintenance. In the contemporary situation Sámi have started through their own associations and networks require more appropriate services in the cities, including Sámi language learning in the schools and kindergartens. This is not always satisfactory. The article evaluates the existing international and domestic (Finland) legislation in regard to Sámi language, but also the implementation of these rights in practice.

Article homepage here.

New article: “Is an urban Sámi future possible?”

mikbn on 13. November 2018

A post-colonial perspective on young and urban Sámi.

In the most recent issue of Norsk sosiologisk tidsskrift, Astri Dankertsen & Christina Åhrén discuss the survival and growth of indigenous identity and culture among urbanized youth. The article is based on interviews with young Sámi in different Nordic states’ urban areas.

The article is available in Norwegian at Idunn.

ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH:

Northern Europe’s indigenous people, the Sámi, experience, like other indigenous people all around the world, an increasing urbanization (Peters & Andersen, 2013). This is relevant especially for the younger generations, where ever more young Sámi grow up in or move to the cities. Concurrently with the increasing urbanization of Sámi, new questions arise regarding a Sámi future in the cities, where Sámi visibility and cultural survival in the city become important issues. We are interested in how colonial relations, representations and practices are reproduced in the present. We have interviewed Sámi youth in selected Nordic cities, representatives of Sámi youth organizations, Sámi civil society stakeholders in general, in addition to relevant authorities. In the article, we explore how Sámi youth, Sámi youth organizations, the majority society and its institutions create new urban Sámi spaces through interaction. Through Sara Ahmed’s (2004) concepts comfort/discomfort, we analyze how colonial structures are experienced on the microlevel in urban societies where there is not always space for Sámi language and culture.

Keywords: sámi, urbanity, indigenous people, colonialism, decolonization

New article: “The governance of urban indigenous spaces: Norwegian Sámi examples”

mikbn on 26. April 2018

This article explores different ways of governing urban indigenous social spaces, with an eye to how local indigenous self-government is facilitated or frustrated.

In Acta Borealia‘s most recent issue, Mikkel Berg-Nordlie looks at “urban indigenous spaces”: organized social spaces that enable the practice, preservation, transfer, and development of indigenous culture, language, identity, and community in an urban setting. The article is based on studies of indigenous culture houses and Sámi national day celebrations in the urban areas Alta, Trondheim, and Oslo.

Click here to read the article on Acta Borealia‘s website. A limited number of free copies of the article is available here.

 

Abstract

A major challenge in Norway is the absence of actors that represent the entire local indigenous population. The main Norwegian Sámi NGO is a driving force in establishing and governing indigenous spaces, but is now one of several and often competing organizations due to specialization (new organizations form to promote specific subgroups’ interests) and partisanization (organizations compete in elections to the Sámediggi representative organ). Social media facilitate communication across organizational divides, but do not produce any unified local indigenous “voice”. Private businesses and public cultural institutions take part in establishing and governing indigenous spaces – the former often in complete autonomy from Sámi NGOs, the latter more likely to seek cooperation or coordination. Local and regional state-based actors generally do not take initiatives to establish indigenous spaces, but involve themselves as co-organizers with Sámi leads and as sources of (often unstable) economic support. The state-based Sámediggi is increasingly proactive: financing, facilitating contact between actors, and occasionally participating directly in urban indigenous governance. The Sámediggi provides a unifying representative voice at the macro level that is missing at the local level.

 

KEYWORDS: Indigenous urbanization, Sámi urbanization, indigenous self-government, local indigenous self-government, network governance, Nordic indigenous policy