Ethnic categorisation, identity and perceptions of life among Swedish Samis

Gerdner, Arne

doi:10.1177/1468796820949284

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…To be sure, asking about the general population's benefits is also a primer toward national identity. However, prior research does not find significant differences between the Sámi and majority populations' levels of national identity in either country (Gerdner 2021;Selle, Semb, and Strømsnes 2013). I thus assume that members of both groups feel similar levels of attachment to their country 9 and should hence be equally motivated to choose what they believe is the best solution for that country.…”

Section: Policy Vignettesmentioning

confidence: 92%

Divided Attitudes Toward Rectifying Injustice: How Preferences for Indigenous Policies Differ Between the Indigenous and Majority Populations of Norway and Sweden

Bergmann

2024

J. Race Ethnicity Politics

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Most states acknowledge the significance of Indigenous rights to rectify past injustices. Yet, on the domestic level, the realization of these rights depends on national policies. For democratic societies, questions about public opinion toward Indigenous policies are thus of great interest but remain largely unstudied. To what extent does the ethnic majority support policies conducive to Indigenous rights realization? And how different are the Indigenous population’s policy preferences? I use original experimental data from a vignette study to investigate these questions in the case of the Sámi people in Norway and Sweden. I hypothesize that groups’ attitudes are shaped by policies’ potential to alter the social status hierarchy between the majority and Indigenous populations. The results provide a nuanced picture. The ethnic majority shows significantly less support for policies facilitating Sámi linguistic, self-governance, and territorial rights. While the Sámi have, in general, more positive attitudes toward such policies, their support seems to be less pronounced than the majority’s resistance. Moreover, as attitudes are surprisingly similar when compared between Norway and Sweden, a country’s existing policy context does not appear to be crucial in the formation of these preferences.

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Section: Policy Vignettesmentioning

confidence: 92%

Divided Attitudes Toward Rectifying Injustice: How Preferences for Indigenous Policies Differ Between the Indigenous and Majority Populations of Norway and Sweden

Bergmann

2024

J. Race Ethnicity Politics

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“…seen as spiritual knowledge (as opposed to "rational" or scientific knowledge) and may create perplexity regarding who qualifies as the holder of spiritual knowledge. One example is the debate in northern Europe on who qualifies as Sámi (and Metsälappalaiset; see Valkonen et al 2017, Gerdner 2021. Assigning knowledge as spiritual can carry the danger of reinforcing knowledge-power relationships (Ingold 2000, Valkonen et al 2017, Tuulentie et al 2020.…”

Section: Concluding On a Transition Hypothesis: Evolution Of Forest S...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring evolving spiritual values of forests in Europe and Asia: a transition hypothesis toward re-spiritualizing forests

Roux¹,

Konczal²,

Bernasconi³

et al. 2022

E&S

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The development of societies, including spiritual development, is closely connected to forests. The larger interrelations among changing societies, transforming forest landscapes, and evolving spiritual values related to forests have yet to be extensively considered. Addressing this research gap is important to avoid the neglect of spiritual values in forest policy and management. Our exploratory study investigates spiritual values of forests from European and Asian perspectives, assessing 13 countries. Based on expert knowledge from 18 interdisciplinary experts, we first define forest spiritual values (forest spirituality). We then elaborate on the idea that forest spirituality evolves as societies and landscapes change, and propose a transition hypothesis for forest spirituality. We identify indicators and drivers and portray four stages of such a transition using country-specific examples. We find that during a first stage ("nature is powerful"), forest spirituality is omnipresent through the abundance of sacred natural sites and practices of people who often directly depend on forests for their livelihoods. An alternative form of spirituality is observed in the second stage ("taming of nature"). Connected to increasing transformation of forest landscapes and intensifying land-use practices, "modern" religions guide human-nature interrelations. In a third stage ("rational management of nature"), forest spirituality is overshadowed by planned rational forest management transforming forests into commodities for the economy, often focusing on provisioning ecosystem services. During a fourth stage ("reconnecting with nature"), a revival of forest spirituality (re-spiritualization) can be observed due to factors such as urbanization and individualizing spirituality. Our core contribution is in showing the connections among changing forest perceptions, changing land-use governance and practices, and changing forest spirituality. Increasing the understanding of this relationship holds promise for supporting forest policy-making and management in addressing trade-offs between spiritual values and other aspects of forests.

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“…In the beginning of the Sámi indigenous rights movement, reindeer herding became a core symbol of Sámi identity and lifestyle -it became a symbol of the cultural distance to the dominant populations of the states. Those Sámi whose livelihoods were based on fishing and agriculture, for example Inari Sámi in Finland, Sea Sámi in Norway (Pedersen and Viken 2009) or Forest Sámi in Sweden (Gerdner 2021), long had to deal with their lifestyle not being conform with the dominating narrative of Sáminess. This is something that Indigenous Peoples have to cope with and navigate with their political representatives, who calculate the pros and cons of admitting the actual diversity and heterogeneity of Indigenous people themselves.…”

Section: Conclusion: Indigenous Claims Among the Indigenousmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting indigenous identities? An example of cultural expertise on sámi identity

Toivanen

2022

Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Analysis

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The national law of Finland identify criteria of belonging to the Indigenous Sámi in order to protect their cultural heritage and identity. In Finland, the electoral committee of the representative organ of Sámi Indigenous Peoples, the Sámi Parliament, decides who fulfills the criteria for being Sámi and thus is included in the electoral roll. Since its establishment, the Sámi Parliament has rejected hundreds of applications by persons not recognized as Sámi. Unsuccessful applicants can appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland (SAC). In 2015, the SAC overturned 93 rejections. This led to an internal crisis of the Sámi Parliament and to the question, who actually has the cultural expertise to decide who is indigenous in Finland. Sámi activists filed two complaints with the United Nations Human Rights Committee regarding the violation of Sámi rights to self-determination. In 2019, the Human Rights Committee concluded that Finland had violated the rights of the Sámi. This paper analyzes what is the cultural expertise for ascertaining Sámi identity and who exercises it. The focus is on the evidence required by the SAC and the question of whether identity can be decided by legal experts, independent judges of a Finnish judiciary without any involvement of cultural experts. It is argued that the legal instruments adopted to protect Indigenous Peoples lack cultural expertise on the diversity and heterogeneity of the real-life contexts where rights are negotiated, leading applicants to repeat essentialist arguments of how Indigenous Peoples stereotypically would be. Introduction: "To be a member of an indigenous group, you better wear a funny hat" 1 "Indigeneity", or "indigenous identity", is in both the anthropological and legal sense based on people's self-identification, as well as on the recognition of their indigeneity by others in the same tribe or group (Cobo 1986). In Finland, Sweden and Norway, national laws on Sámi Parliament regulate this identification at the national levels

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Ethnic categorisation, identity and perceptions of life among Swedish Samis

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Divided Attitudes Toward Rectifying Injustice: How Preferences for Indigenous Policies Differ Between the Indigenous and Majority Populations of Norway and Sweden

Divided Attitudes Toward Rectifying Injustice: How Preferences for Indigenous Policies Differ Between the Indigenous and Majority Populations of Norway and Sweden

Exploring evolving spiritual values of forests in Europe and Asia: a transition hypothesis toward re-spiritualizing forests

Protecting indigenous identities? An example of cultural expertise on sámi identity

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