This article is about translating and mistranslating a Sámi landscape word. That word is meahcci. In what follows we start by exploring the logic of meahcci, contrast this with Norwegian land practices, with utmark – the term which is usually used to (mis)translate it into Norwegian – or such English-language terms as wilderness. We show that meahcci has nothing to do with agricultural logics, ideas of the wild, or cartographic spaces. Rather meahcit (in the plural) are practical places, uncertain but productive social relations with lively and morally sensible human and non-human beings in which there is no division between nature (Norwegian natur) and culture ( kultur). Meahcit are taskscapes (Ingold) or places–times–tasks. Then we consider the relatively verb- or action-oriented character of the (North) Sámi language, and show that Sámi land practices and the patterns of words weaving through these enact contextual, processual and radically relational versions of space, time, interaction, subjectivities, objectivities, and the beings that live in the world. We also touch on the material character of this difference – the location of words and forms of knowing. We conclude by reflecting on what Sámi meahcci practices suggest for a hegemonic English-language social science that is also struggling to articulate situated and radically relational ways of knowing.

This article describes a colonial encounter in north Norway between Sámi practices for fishing and knowing the natural world, and the conservation policies of state policy makers. In Sámi practices the world is populated by powerful and morally lively human and nonhuman actors. In caring for the land and its lakes in practical ways it is important to sustain respectful relations with those actors. Norwegian environmental policy works differently by distinguishing between nature and culture and seeking to protect landscapes from what it takes to be human interference, so that natural forces can operate unimpeded. The article first explores these two different worldviews and shows how environmental policy imposes restrictions on fishing practices that make it difficult or impossible for Sámi fisherpeople to care for and sustain respectful relations with their lakes. It then reflects on the significance of translation and mistranslation for this encounter, noting that important environmentally relevant Sámi words translate poorly into Norwegian or English, and that the practices that these index are ignored or misunderstood in those translations. In particular, it focuses on the notion of jávredikšun, a key term for Sámi people who fish on inland lakes, and shows that the word indexes environmental actions and realities that translate only with difficulty into English. Finally, it considers the potential political and analytical significance of refusing translations of this and other important environmentally relevant indigenous words.

How might we think about the fluidities of those who live in high variability environments when they butt up against state and disciplinary stabilities? This Afterword explores this question by distinguishing between infrastructures of stability and infrastructures of fluidity. The differences between these – which the paper calls the infrastructures of difference – are not simply conceptual, methodological and epistemological, but also deeply embedded in normative, metaphysical, institutional and material relations. This explains why they are so resilient, and why the infrastructures of stability so powerfully enact the bias against variability of pastoralists, Roma and indigenous groups. However, the Afterword also argues that in practice stabilities and fluidities are entangled, relational, and are never mutually exclusive. Instead they go together fractally, so that stabilities lie within fluidities, and fluidities within stabilities. Finally, the Afterword rehearses the political and intellectual implications of this by touching on the tactics used by those who champion fluidities in the face of powerful stabilities. The lesson here appears paradoxical, but it is not: to be fluid is (also) to include stability.

Present-day academic work is mostly done in English. What happens, or so the contributions to this monograph ask, when we open a few windows, let in some air, and invite elements drawn from other linguistic traditions into our texts? Doing so does not simply mean welcoming other words. Along with this it also changes the conditions, the terms, that stipulate what is, and what is not, good-proper, interesting, international, academic-writing. To exemplify the way in which the traffic between languages is rarely smooth, here we briefly present some of the conundrums that have arisen as we, the authors, have picked up the phrase that figures as our title-on other terms-and tried to translate itrewrite it-into the other languages that we introduce in the articles in this monograph. In Hungarian, the first phrase that comes to mind is más szóval, which literally means 'with other word' (singular!). This is often used in everyday language, when someone wants to find a better way of saying something. Then there is más feltétellel, which means 'under other conditions'. This sounds more like a legal expression, specifying under what circumstances something can be used. On the cover, you will find más szóval because this captures an interesting tension between sameness and difference. It suggests that by using a different word it becomes possible to say the same thing, but better.

“Decolonization” has, since Linda Tuhiwai Smith published her critique of Western academic research, been a concept guiding scholars to address the unequal relationship between Indigenous and scientific knowledge. Decolonization is a move toward sovereignty regarding land, recognition of Indigenous ways of knowing, as well as rethinking education. Decolonial thinking is about attending to ontological troubles and about unlearning and undoing colonial ideas, theories, and infrastructures. This entry, speaking from Sápmi (the Indigenous North of Europe), argues that without critically addressing and changing how academic institutions are built, and what counts as academic knowledge, university programs risk reproducing repressive and asymmetrical knowledge production. It revisits the critique of anthropology articulated by Sámi Indigenous students since the 1970s and asks if there are lessons to be learned in order to think otherwise. Such an endeavor calls for a critical investigation of how institutions address the colonial legacy of education and research.