Sámi dutkama máttut

Abstract

The chapter highlights the methodological importance in research of knowledgeable Sámi persons who had formal academic education and traditional knowledge-based competence. We regard these persons as the forerunners of present-day Sámi methodological thinking, Sámi dutkama máttut. They envisioned how Sámi issues can be studied and written about. They were able to write and conduct research based on their knowledge about the Sámi ways of thinking, philosophies and life maintenance. Between the 17th and 20th century, non-Sámi scholars were in the majority in shaping information about the Sámi. Today, Indigenous research methodologies shed light on Indigenous languages and experiences when theorising Indigenous knowledges. These ideas can be traced back to Sámi thinkers over the last five hundred years, even if this not overtly articulated in their writings. In their work, one can identify certain methodological choices, which we nowadays almost take for granted. This chapter is a tribute to the great Sámi thinkers who contributed to the rise of Sámi research from the Sámi perspective until Sámi research was institutionalized by the establishment of the Nordic Sámi Institute in 1973. In this chapter, we also introduce and apply the lávvu method as an analytical tool.

Small collections remembered: Sámi material culture and community‐based digitization at the Smithsonian Institution

“…The group visiting the collection included Sami Laiti, a Sámi duojár from a prominent crafting family in the Anar area of Sápmi; Jelena Porsanger, former Rector of the Sámi Allaskuvla, Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino, and current director of The Sámi Museum in Karasjok, a pathfinder of Indigenous methodologies who incorporates 3D technology in community‐based museology (see Porsanger, 2004, 2014; Porsanger et al, 2021; Porsanger & Seurujärvi‐Kari, 2021); Natalia Magnani, a sociocultural anthropologist who has worked in Sápmi since 2014, when she began to study and support museum‐based cultural revitalization initiatives in the Skolt Sámi village of Če'vetjäu'rr (Magnani, 2018; Magnani & Magnani, 2018); Matthew Magnani, an anthropological archeologist who has worked in Sápmi since 2014, with broad interest in digital applications in the field (Douglass et al, 2017; Magnani, 2014; Magnani et al, 2016, 2020); Anne May Olli, director of the RDM, who was originally trained as a museum conservator; Samuel Valkeapää, Assistant Professor and North Sámi duojár based at the Sámi Allaskuvla, where he integrates 3D technologies to teach Sámi (and Indigenous) craft and design; Eric Hollinger, Tribal Liaison in the Repatriation Office of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History where he collaborates with Native American tribes in the areas of 3D digitization and replication, traditional care of collections and pesticides detection and mitigation; and Paula Rauhala, a North Sámi conservator from Avvil (Ivalo) who works at The Sámi Museum in Karasjok and is currently completing her master's thesis on 3D technologies and repatriation in Sápmi.…”

Love in the Mother Tongue: Per Fokstad’s Philosophy of Education

“…Although Fokstad is known for his political contributions to Sámi self-determination (Zakariassen 2012), he has not been studied as a philosopher and theorist of education. Bringing him into this literature is a contribution to building our intellectual sense of ancestry (Porsanger and Seurujärvi-Kari 2021). Working with the concept of máttut, or ancestor, Porsanger and Seurujärvi-Kari argue that tracing Sámi intellectual history beyond the institutionalization of Sámi research provides a stronger foothold for present-day efforts to build Sámi knowledge (Porsanger and Seurujärvi-Kari Genealogy 2024, 8, 45 2 of 14 2021).…”