Sámi Identity Representation and
Revitalization in Northern Norway
Charlotte de Jong
In cooperation with The National Museum of World Cultures:Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden
S1134396
Supervisor: Prof. dr. Pieter ter Keurs Date: June 28, 2017
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction ... 4
1.1 Description of fieldwork ... 6
Chapter 2. Politics, protests and society ... 14
2.1 Introduction to Sámi history ... 14
2.2 History of assimilation ... 17
2.3 Sámi politics nowadays ... 22
2.4 Sámi struggles nowadays ... 23
Chapter 3. Theoretical background ... 25
3.1 Identity and identity formation ... 25
3.2 Material culture and its power ... 31
3.3 Museums and museum representation... 34
3.4 Being indigenous ... 36
Chapter 4. Methods ... 39
4.1 Operationalization... 39
4.2 Methodology ... 40
4.3 Ethical considerations and the position of the researcher in the field... 44
Chapter 5. Museums, representation and identity ... 46
5.1 Museum Volkenkunde ... 46
5.2 Introduction to national and Sámi museums ... 47
5.3 National museums: Tromsø museum and Alta museum... 48
5.4 Sámi museums: Karasjok museum and Kautokeino museum ... 61
5.5 The North Norwegian Art museum and exhibition ‘There is no’ ... 67
5.6 Conclusion: the future of Sámi museums? ... 71
Chapter 6. Analysis and conclusion ... 73
6.1 Sámi revitalization: discovering being Sámi ... 73
6.2 The role of material culture ... 75
6.3 Identity representation in museums ... 77
6.4 Conclusion: answering research question ... 79
6.5 Recommendations ... 81
Table of images
Image 1 - Cake to celebrate the Sámi national day... 9
Image 2 - Women wearing gákti's in different styles during the 6th of February celebrations at the Radhuset. ... 9
Image 3 - Part of the 'Sámi culture' exhibition... 49
Image 4 - Part of the 'Sámi culture' exhibition... 49
Image 5 - Part of the 'Sámi culture' exhibition ... 50
Image 6 - Part of the 'Sámi culture' exhibition ... 50
Image 7 - The entrance towards the 'Sápmi - becoming a nation' exhibition ... 52
Image 8 - The text at the entrance of the 'Sápmi - becoming a nation' exhibition. First in Sámi, then in Norwegian and lastly in English. ... 53
Image 10 - In the 'Sápmi - becoming a nation' exhibition. Placing Sámi history in a global context... 54
Image 9 - The style of the 'Sápmi - becoming a nation' exhibition. ... 54
Image 11 - Part of the 'Sápmi - becoming a nation' exhibition. Showing how the World War II speeded up the assimilation. ... 55
Image 12 - A coat made of sheep in the 'Na, maid dá?' exhibition. ... 56
Image 13 - A gákti in the 'Na, maid dá?' exhibition ... 57
Image 14 - The bonnet horn in the 'No, maid dá?' exhibition. ... 58
Image 15 - The part in the museum about the Alta Kautokeino conflict with many protest posters. ... 59
Image 16 - A Sámi drum at the Karasjok Museum. ... 62
Image 17 - Mannequins in the Museum. ... 63
Image 18 - A museum diorama of a Sámi man on a sled pulled by a reindeer. ... 63
Image 19 - A display of different Sámi clothing. ... 64
Image 20 - An old picture of Kautokeino at the entrance of the Museum... 65
Image 21 - An overview of the Kautokeino Museum. ... 65
Image 23 - Clothing from the Kautokeino area. ... 66
Image 22 - Duodji items in the Kautokeino Museum. ... 66
Image 24 - Another text on the wall of the museum, first in Sámi... 68
Image 25 - Photo taken by the North Norwegian Art Museum... 69
Image 27 - Overview of one of the halls. ... 70
Image 26 - A bowl made by Monica Edmonson... 70
Image 28 - Duodji and art come together. ... 71
Image 30 - The table filled with Sámi knives. ... 72
Acknowledgments
This research would not have become what it is now without the help of Dr. Cunera Buijs, curator at the The National Museum of World Cultures, Museum Volkenkunde. She has helped me in creating new ideas, finding literature, and just being there to listen to me being excited about the Arctic. I want to thank Museum Volkenkunde in offering me an inspiring workplace where I was able to write a large part of this thesis, make use of the computer systems and library.
I also want to thank my supervisor, Professor dr. Pieter ter Keurs, for his comments and remarks, for sharing with me his experience in doing fieldwork, and above all, letting me work independently so that I was able to make this research my own.
Special thanks go to the Research Center of Material Culture in granting me the Steven Engelsman Grant. Without it I would not have been able to conduct the research I have done. I want to thank all the museums I have visited in Norway and my contacts there: The Tromsø Museum, the Alta Museum, The RiddoDuottarMuseat in Karasjok and Kautokeino, and the North Norwegian Art Museum. Without their cooperation, I would be without a research! I want to thank my parents and sister for all their support. And especially Mo, for all his patience, input and for listening to my overexcited stories about my fieldwork.
Chapter 1.
Introduction
Before starting this research, I thought I would not experience any cultural shock. I knew Norway, I even lived there. Well, I was wrong. Here I was, just walked through a meter of snow with minus 30 degrees Celsius. I was wearing five layers of clothes, but my hands and nose were still freezing. The sun was setting at 3pm, and I was standing all by myself on a frozen river, in a small town where everyone knew each other except me. But it was the most beautiful view I have ever seen. It could not get better than this, I thought. And then, two men appeared, both holding a reindeer on a leash, walking them over the river.
This thesis combines the topics of material culture, museum representation and identity formation in the case of the Sámi living in the north of Norway. The Sámi are an indigenous people living in the north Norway, Sweden, Finland and on the Kola-peninsula of Russia. They are mostly known as reindeer herders migrating with their herds from winter to summer pastures, however most Sámi do not have this livelihood and there are many
differences between Sámi groups. There are the coastal Sámi who used to live of fish, forest Sámi, Skolt Sami originating from Russia and Finland, and other groups (Lehtola 2004).
‘Traditional’ livelihoods, such as reindeer herding, are not widespread. Only a small
percentage of Sámi nowadays can make a live of reindeer herding. Recently, people are finding out about their Sámi background, as a large group of people tried to hide the fact that they were Sámi due to discrimination and stigmatization as a result of decades of assimilation policies. In Norway, you can say you are Sámi when one of your parents or grandparents spoke Sámi and you feel Sámi. If this is the case, you can register yourself at the Sametinget, the Sámi parliament, and vote for the Sámi political parties.
The research question of this thesis is: How has material culture and identity
representation in museums influenced the struggle for more rights and identity formation of Sámi in Northern Norway? To support this question there are four sub-questions that I will answer:
1. How have the Sámi struggled for indigenous rights and what role did representations of identity and material culture in museums play in this struggle?
3. What effect had the Sámi cultural revitalization on Sámi identity and Sámi material culture?
4. How are material culture and identity of Sámi represented in the Volkenkunde Museum in Leiden and in the museums in Norway?
Chapter one is an introduction to the case and will discuss the object of study and the field of study. It will also give a description of the fieldwork. Chapter two explains a part of Sámi history which is necessary to understand current day issues. I believe it is impossible to understand the struggles of Sámi people today without having an understanding of their history. Sámi people have experienced many struggles. One of my respondents even used
the term “cultural genocide” referring to the assimilation period from the previous century which has had a major impact on the position of Sámi culture today. Even though there is no assimilation from the Norwegian government anymore and on paper the Sámi seem to have many rights, the implementation of these laws and the attitude from non-Sámi, including the Norwegian government, is far from accepting the Sámi culture as a part of Norway.
Chapter three discusses the theoretical background of this thesis. It addresses key concepts such as identity and identity formation, material culture, museums and museum representation, and indigeneity. Chapter four explains the methods that have been used during this research: collection-based research, semi-structured interviews and
observations. Also the ethical considerations attached to doing indigenous research will be discussed. Chapter five then describes the fieldwork conducted at the Volkenkunde Museum and the museums I visited in Norway. Chapter six is the analysis and conclusion of this research, answering the sub- and research question of this thesis.
The field of study of this research is demarcated in two different groups. One group are Sámi in Northern Norway living in Alta, Karasjok and Kautokeino. The second group are museums that exhibit Sámi objects or art. The first group is connected to a specific area: Finnmark, the northern most region of Norway. This area is traditionally seen as Sámi area and is part of the area that is called Sápmi, which means the land of the Sámi’s (Lehtola 2004). Geographically, the ‘borders’ of Sápmi go to the middle of Norway, however
becomes clear that Sámi were living more south. The three languages are North-Sámi, Lule-Sámi which is spoken in the middle of Norway, and South-Lule-Sámi. North-Lule-Sámi and Lule-Lule-Sámi speaking people can understand each other, however South-Sámi is very different from the other two languages (Lehtola 2004).
The second group are museums that exhibit Sámi objects or art. This research started in Leiden, the Netherlands, at the Volkenkunde museum. This museum has a collection of almost 500 Sámi objects. Most objects were collected in the 1970s and contain small household items, duodji, which are traditional Sámi handicrafts. Four museums in Norway are also part of this research: the Tromsø Museum, the Alta Museum, and two museums that are part of the RiddoDuottarMuseat in Karasjok and Kautokeino. In Norway they make a distinction between Norwegian and Sámi museums. If more than half of the employees are Sámi, a museum is official a Sámi museum. If not it is a Norwegian museum. An implication of being a Sámi museum or Norwegian museum is the source of the funding for the
museum. A Norwegian museum receives its funding from the Norwegian government, a Sámi museum from the Sámi government. This will be explained more in depth in Chapter five.
Before describing the fieldwork, I want to make a few practical points regarding this thesis. All the pictures shown in this thesis are taken by me, except when mentioned otherwise. From a few museums, I got access to pictures they have taken of their museum and collections. Another point is that I do not mention my respondents by name if they have shared personal stories. In these cases I will anonymize their story. In the cases where no personal stories were shared and we only discussed issues regarding the museum I will mention the name of the person I spoke to.
1.1 Description of fieldwork
Buijs, was looking for someone who could do research on Sámi design. Even though this also being a very interesting topic, I have a background in political science and international relations, I wanted to combine this knowledge with cultural anthropology. I therefore wanted to look more into the struggle of the Sámi for more rights and their identity formation and decided to connect this to the use of material culture.
I am not new to studying Sámi history and culture. In 2014, I lived in Tromsø for a semester where I followed courses on Sámi culture and indigenous rights. Before starting this research I had some knowledge on the case of the Sámi in Norway. I discussed this with Cunera Buijs and we agreed that I would study the role of Sámi material culture and political processes and that I would go to Norway for a month to do fieldwork. Going for a longer period was unfortunately not possible because of finances and work in the Netherlands. One month is a very short and limited time and therefore one of my recommendations for
further research is inevitably a longer fieldwork period. To finance the fieldwork, I applied for the Steven Engelsman Grant, a scholarship for research on material culture. I received 1,000 euros, which I have used to pay for flights, busses and housing.
I spent the first month of the fieldwork period, January at the Museum Volkenkunde researching the online database of their Sámi collection. I decided to start with this to get a clear understanding of what type of objects there are, the background and history of these items, and learn how they are stored and saved. Important for me was also to gain
knowledge about the process of collecting items. During this first period, I gained significant knowledge about the approximately 500 Sámi objects the museum has. Also, by talking to the curator about the collection and walking through the exhibition, I learned more about how museums chose the items they put on display.
wear. However, I also encountered the difficulty of not speaking better Norwegian. After the concert I approached the singer but he only spoke Norwegian. I do speak a little Norwegian, but not good enough for an interview. Luckily a woman working at the museum was willing to function as an interpreter and I was able to ask him a few questions about joiking, which may not have been of relevance for this research but prepared me in starting to approach people and talk about my research.
During this first week, I also had my first interview, which I had scheduled
beforehand. Professor Trude Fonneland, working for the Arctic University at the Tromsø museum was willing to talk to me about my research and give me a tour through the
museum. She explained to me how the collection came to what it is now and what the ideas behind it are. It was not my first time visiting this museum, as in 2014 part of the course on Arctic Culture I was taking was to visit the museum. What I find very special of this museum is that there are two exhibitions on the Sámi from two very different time periods. One of them is from 1970s, the other is from this century. Seeing the difference of perception of the Sámi in these two time periods, is what this museum makes it so interesting for me. This will be explained more in chapter five.
I planned that I would be in Tromsø during the celebrations of the Sámi national day on the 6th of February. The celebrations already start at the 5th of February, with the annual reindeer race in the middle of Tromsø, which was very special to see. The reindeer with a
person on ski’s behind it, run a straight track with an incredibly high speed. Reindeer races happen throughout the North and some people train for it all year (Lehtola 2004). During this day, there is also a Sámi market. It only has a few stands and a lavvu, a traditional Sámi tent. This market is for the biggest part oriented on tourists that come in with cruise ships and visit Tromsø for a few days. I tried to talk in my best Norwegian with an older Sámi man who was wearing a gákti, but most of the time he was busy with taking pictures with
tourists.
In the afternoon, I went to the Radhuset, the municipality building, where there were more celebrations. The same school class was singing here as well and there were more speeches, this time from the major. The event ended with a concert by joik singers. The room was filled with around 80 Sámi people, most of them wearing the gákti, all in different colors. I managed to have a few conversations with some people. When I told one woman about my research she asked me if I had heard of this joke the Sámi have about
anthropologist. Sámi joke that no Sámi family is complete without an
anthropologist. I am definitely not the only one.
After this first week of fieldwork in Tromsø I took the bus to Alta, a small city on the west coast of Finnmark which was a seven-hour drive away. Sámi people who originally lived here, were called coastal Sámi and their livelihood often consisted of fishing (Eidheim 1971). I stayed here for two nights and rented a small room through Airbnb. By coincidence, my host turned out to be Sámi. He was not that willing to talk, so I only managed to talk with him for a brief 10 minutes when he picked me up from the bus station. I
Image 1 - Cake to celebrate the Sámi national day
asked him if he celebrated the 6th of February, and he very proudly told me that his kids had celebrated it at school and that they were wearing a gákti for the first time, which made him very proud.
I wanted to go to Alta to visit the Alta museum. This is not an official Sámi museum, so not half of the museum staff has a Sámi background, but they do tell many things about the Sámi. During summer time when there is no snow, it is possible to see the rock drawings outside, which are made by Sámi. When I was visiting they just opened an exhibition
considering the Bååstede project: returning objects to the area they are from. As only official Sámi museums participate in this project and as the Alta museum is not, they will not
receive these objects indefinite. The Alta Museum will showcase them until autumn of this year. When talking to a woman working at the reception, they were not sure what would happen with the objects after this, and I got the impression that these objects might stay longer at the Alta museum. I did not have an official interview with someone at this museum, but planned one for a few weeks later.
After two nights, and one full day spent in Alta, I took another bus, into the heart of Finnmark: Karasjok. This is a small town where almost the entire population has a Sámi background. Also, the Sámi parliament, the Sametinget, is located here. I stayed at what they call a motel, which means that you have a single person room and bathroom and share a kitchen. I arrived on an extremely cold night: -30 degrees Celsius. On my first night, I met a Finnish woman staying at the hotel who lived here for a few months to receive training from a silver smith. When she heard that I am Dutch and researched Sámi material culture she immediately told me that the next day I had to come with her to her job, as she worked with a Dutch silversmith.
So I did. The next day we first went to a Sámi market organized in a gym with little stalls where people were selling all sorts of items, including many Sámi items: clothing, hats, shoes, reindeer skins, senna grass, jewelry and bibles. Most of the people present were wearing the gákti or a Sámi hat or shoes. It was very busy and offered the perfect
people were not that open for having a conversation longer than a few sentences. They did not seem comfortable with it. In other cases, the person did not speak any English and the conversation would stay very simple.
After the market, we went to the silversmith. It was so surreal after just being in a room full of Sámi people and hearing Norwegian and Sámi to suddenly be talking Dutch. The silversmith turned out to be the partner of a Dutch woman with whom I had been in contact through the curator of the Volkenkunde museum. So that afternoon, the silversmith told me a few things about making Sámi jewelry and how he learned to do it. I had noticed that many silversmiths in Finnmark, including the most famous one, Juhls in Kautokeino, are not Norwegian or Sámi. He explained to me that this is because there is not a good silversmith school in Norway and that therefore many people come from outside Norway.
That weekend in Karasjok I met up with a man I met through Couchsurfing. He is Norwegian from the south of Norway and just moved to Karasjok. As I did not know that much people there, I thought it would be nice to meet up. We went to the Karasjok
museum, where I met a woman working there who was interested in being interviewed. Due to time, we had to arrange it when I was back in the Netherlands and had the interview via Skype. I talked to the man about my research and he offered to ask a few people at his workplace if they would like to be interviewed. At his work place, a psychological institute, most people are Sámi and he managed to find a colleague that was willing to be interviewed by me.
So the next day, on Tuesday the 14th of February, I went to the psychological institute in Karasjok and met up with the woman. We had a very interesting interview, as she told me that she only learned on a later age that her family has a Sámi background. She did not grow up in Karasjok but moved here later to learn the Sámi language, and told me about the stigmatization she endured from the Sámi community that have ‘grown up’ as Sámi’s. She
also told me about the stigmatization towards Sámi in the Norwegian healthcare system. For example, if someone does not speak Norwegian there should be an interpreter available. However, in the case of a Sámi person, nurses and doctors often do not think of providing an interpreter. Especially in cases where the patient is a bit older, they have trouble to
the situation of a Sámi person. She gave me an example of a Sámi man who was diagnosed with a mild depression and was given the advice to go for a walk outside every day.
However, the man, a reindeer herder, spent most of his days outside and did not feel understood with this medical advice. This proved the lack of understanding for the situation of Sámi people, she said. So, the woman and her co-workers are working on a e-course that teaches medical staff to become more culturally aware.
Besides this interview, the next day I had another interview scheduled, this time with two women working at the Karasjok museum. I talk about the details of this interview in Chapter five. Throughout the days, I walked around a lot, observing how life in a small town goes. I also visited the Sámediggi, the Sámi parliament. On my first day there I had a guided tour through the building. In the parliament, there is also a large library which is open for the public. All the books are about the Sámi and there is also a large section in English. The next day I went again and spent the whole morning reading books and taking notes.
After almost a week, I order a bus to Kautokeino which you have to do because the towns are so small and they want to know how much people take the bus. After a confusing phone call in Norwegian, I managed to book the bus. Turned out that I was the only one travelling to Kautokeino that day, and therefore they had arranged a taxi. The taxi driver was an older Sámi man from Kautokeino who was very chatty, unfortunately only spoke
Norwegian and Sámi but I managed to have some sort of conversation with him. He tried to teach me how to joik and speak Sámi. As I was very eager to see a reindeer herd, as I had not yet seen any besides two reindeer being walked by their owners on a frozen river in
Karasjok, my taxi driver looked out for them and stopped his car so I could take some pictures.
After Kautokeino I went to Alta for one night, on my way to Tromsø. I took the bus in the early morning and went to the Alta museum for an interview with Eva Johansen. You can read more about this interview in Chapter five. The next day I went back to Tromsø, where I spent my last few days of the fieldwork. During these days I went to the opening of the
Chapter 2.
Politics, protests and society
This chapter will discuss more in-depth the background of the Sámi. I will touch upon the history of assimilation, the political situation of the past and present, and the Sámi and the Norwegian society. But first, I will start with giving a small overview of Sámi history. As this research focuses on northern Norway, most of this chapter is focused on the history of the Sámi in Norway. However, as the Sámi lived in the Fenno-Scandinavian area before borders were drawn, I feel it is necessary to discuss the situation of the Sámi that also live across the Norwegian borders, before explaining the history of assimilation focused on the Sámi in northern Norway.
2.1 Introduction to Sámi history
The Sámi: “One people in four nation states” or “A people divided by borders
(Henriksen 1999, 16; Lehtola 2004, 9). These are often the starting points of explaining Sámi history. Estimating the number of people with a Sámi background is hard to do (Henriksen
1999, 24). Even a census does not provide certain figures as “so many people still do not
acknowledge their Saami background, mostly because of the historical discrimination and stigmatization of the Saami” (Henriksen 1999, 24). I feel that this quote, written in 1999, is
still true in some part, but that there is a tendency of people exploring their Sámi
background as there are people that did not know about their Sámi background until at a later age. In any case, asking someone if he or she is Sámi, is not that straightforward as it might seem.
The origin of the Sámi has been of interest of many researchers, because of the uniqueness of Sámi culture compared to the majority of the population living in the same region (Lehtola 2004, 20). Especially the reindeer herding Sámi protrude against their neighbors doing agriculture. There have been thoughts that the Sámi must have originated from Mongolia or even from the Basque area in Spain (Lehtola 2004, 20). As Lehtola
explains: “The basic assumption of such theories has generally been that Sámi became isolated as a population, thus preserving at least some of their original characteristics”
contact with other cultural groups and have been involved in trading materials and objects (Lehtola 2004, 22).
The Sámi have several material symbols that could set them apart from Norwegians. For example, they have a traditional outfit, the gákti, but with many mutual differences (Lehtola 2004). Every region, every town and sometimes even every family is recognizable by
different colors, a different style or the quantity of ribbons (Lehtola 2004). The type of hat is also an important indicator to see where someone is from. During my research, I have been at a few events where I encountered many Sámi people in the traditional gákti and even after a bit of research, it is very hard to exactly say where someone is from. But when talking to one of my respondents, a Sámi women she could tell me exactly which dress is from which area.
I want to stress that the Sámi are a very diverse group, with different types of
livelihoods, histories and even languages. The typical image of Sámi being originally reindeer
herders and nomads is not true (Webb 2006, 172). However, reindeer herding Sámi’s have
become the symbol for being Sámi. It is therefore important to keep in mind, that nowadays this is only a small part of Sámi people that still have this way of living. A Sámi way of living has always been subject to change and external influences. Sámi lived in what are called
siida’s: “a permanent socio-economic and political institution” (Lehtola 2004, 23). They lived
like this until the 1500s, when states surrounding the Sámi area started to increase their influence and colonization spread (Lehtola 2004, 26). Besides this, a new livelihood
occurred: the herding of reindeers. Changing to reindeer herding led to total change in the way of living (Lehtola 2004, 26). It meant that the pace of life would change according to the reindeer herds and in the end, migration of the family to take care of the herd.
Nordic countries wanted to gain influence over the northern areas by using Christian missionaries, social control and colonization (Lehtola 2004, 30). These events have had severe impact on the culture of the Sámi. An invasion of the colonists into the siidas
happened, destroying Sámi livelihood and the siida’s being taken over by farmers practicing agriculture. The reindeer Sámi in this case were not harmed (Lehtola 2004, 32). In a
2004, 36). There was another important part to this treaty: the Lapp Codicil which contained the special rights of the Sámi (Lehtola 2004, 36). This seemed very positive, as this codicil
entailed the following principles: “the conservation of the Lappish nation”, the right of the
Sámi to move freely over the border, and the Sámi were freed from military service (Lehtola 2004, 36). It however, did not follow the borders of the siidas, some of them were therefore split in the middle.
This sort of positivism was short lived when Sápmi, the Sámi area, was split in four parts by national borders (Lehtola 2004, 36). The siidas in this area became part of one of these states (Lehtola 2004, 36). New border agreements ignored the Strömstad Border Treaty, prohibiting Sámi to cross the borders. Not only reindeer Sámi were harmed with this, also Sámi whose livelihood depended on fishing for example, were prohibited to cross the borders (Lehtola 2004, 36). Borders were closed: first the Norwegian-Finnish border, later the Finnish-Swedish border.
Sámi people, mainly reindeer Sámi who were particularly hardly affected by this, migrated to one of the countries, as they were forced to choose (Lehtola 2004, 37). The migrating of reindeers used to go from the Finnish inlands in the winters, to the arctic coasts in the summer. Because of the borders, it was no longer possible to travel these large distances (Lehtola 2004, 37). The fact that there was less space to travel with the reindeer led to the herds becoming smaller, which had as a consequence that reindeer herding often was not the number one livelihood anymore and people started to have more permanent settlements (Lehtola 2004, 38).
Before discussing the assimilation period, it is important for the rest of this research to note the relation Sámi people had with objects. As traditionally nomads, Sámi had a different use of material culture than people have nowadays. Objects had to be practical as people were moving from one place to another. This is also the reason why art in the
‘western’ sense, such as paintings, did not play an important role for the Sámi until later (Lehtola 2004, 95). To quote a very influential artist Nils-Aslak Valeapää in Lehtola: “Sámi
culture has never had art. It never had artists either. Traditionally, to the Sámi everything
was life” (2004, 95). Synnove Persen, another very influential Sámi artist said the following in
the 1980s: “Sámi artists differ from the artist of the majority populations in that they can not
and culture” (Lehtola 2004, 95). The relationship with objects naturally changed after less
and less people were living as nomads. Also the periods of assimilation and cultural revitalization played a role in the use of objects and art.
2.2 History of assimilation
Sámi being forced to adjust to the majority is nothing new. It should be clear now that Sámi culture has been subject to change for a long time. However, after the drawing of the borders of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, and with dividing Sápmi in four parts, other developments happened that led to a breakdown in the traditional Sámi society (Lehtola 2004, 42). This next part will explain this and the period of assimilation more in-depth, this time focusing on the situation on the Norwegian side of the border.
The siida was replaced by the Nordic municipal government system (Lehtola 2004, 42). This went together with the local government law of 1837, which can be seen as one of the first measures of Norwegianization as this law stated that to be a municipal
representative one had to speak the Norwegian language (Lehtola 2004, 42). Sámi lost special rights and it became more beneficial to become a colonizer and take part in
agriculture. In the mid 19th century, the hard Norwegianization period begun (Lehtola 2004, 44). Norwegianization was for a part founded on social Darwinist ideas, emphasizing the supposed superiority of European society who should ‘help’‘develop’ cultures that were not embracing these European values (Lehtola 2004, 44). This of course, was not only the case for the Sámi in Norway, but happened throughout the entire world during this period.
The assimilation policies meant ‘Norwegianizing’ the non-Norwegians. Not only the Sámi were affected by this, also the Kvens, a Finnic ethnic minority living in the north of Norway were affected (Lehtola 2004, 44). Norway wanted to strengthen its influence in their northern regions, as these areas were strategically important in the relation with Russia (Lehtola 2004, 44). International relations therefore played an important role in these inward focused policies.
use any interpreters in administrative institutions anymore (Lehtola 2004, 44). Free access to land was only allowed for Norwegians. Being Norwegian was defined by the level of
Norwegian someone spoke. With these policies, the state was forcing Sámi people to learn Norwegian. In the 20th century, these types of policies led to a stigmatization on Sámi
language by the Norwegian society. Language had become a tool to find out if someone was Sámi. If someone spoke Sámi or even had a certain accent, these persons were stigmatized and subordinated. Speaking good Norwegian became very important, thus resulting to many Sámi parents in the 20th century teaching their children only Norwegian, as they did not want their children facing the same struggles as they had done (Eidheim 1971, 59).
During the 20th century, even though the assimilation did not end, some small signs of cultural revitalization started to emerge. One important event happened on the 6th of February 1917 (Lehtola 2004, 48). This day marks the first general meeting of the Sámi in Trondheim, led by Elsa Laula, an important defender of Sámi rights. During this day, Sámi
representatives from Sweden and Norway came together. Nowadays, the 6th of February is
the national Sámi day. This year marked the 100th anniversary of this day and a large celebration was organized in Trondheim where many Sámi people came together and celebrated (Tråante 2017). The beginning of the 20th century marks the awakening of the Sámi (Lehtola 2004, 46). The Sámi saw their own livelihoods being weakened and realized that in order to make a stance against the ruling population, they had to unite. This started with small local organizations focusing more on general Sámi viewpoints (Lehtola 2004, 46). It cannot yet be seen as recognizing an overall Sámi identity, but it was the first step in organizing themselves and making a stance (Lehtola 2004, 46).
The World War II ended this process as the Sámi were ordered to fight in the war. In Scandinavia, the enemy kept changing and there might have been instances in which Sámi from Norway and Finland have been facing each other in battle (Lehtola 2004, 46). In 1944, the Germans wanted to stop the Red Army by using the scorched earth tactic, meaning that Finnmark and a large part of Finnish Lapland was put on fire. The population was evacuated, and upon their return, only a few houses had survived (Lehtola 2004, 52). This tragic event has played an unprecedented important role in the assimilation of the Sámi after the World
War II. As Lehtola puts it: “The destruction of centuries old settlements meant an
become greatly changed through the influence of outsiders, Finns and Norwegians” (2004,
52). The whole area was rebuilt in Norwegian style, thus accelerating the assimilation of the Sámi and leading them towards a life in a modern society (Lehtola 2004, 57).
Even though the Sámi had faced many struggles and invasions on their cultural beliefs, way of living and spiritual life, the crisis they faced after World War II was different than before (Lehtola 2004, 57). With their houses and belongings burned and now living in a Norwegian type house, having to go to schools which were only thought in Norwegian, many Sámi adopted Norwegian values and started to lose their own background.
However, entering what is in the western world often called a ‘modern’ society and lifestyle, a few advantages for creating a collective Sámi identity came along with it:
“Improved communications and information networks have, together with pressure from
outside, led to a growing feeling of solidarity among Sámi” (Lehtola 2004, 57). This was not a
general feeling, happening linear and at the same time throughout entire Sápmi. It rather happened more in waves. Besides that, the postwar period is characterized by a global dialogue on human rights (Lehtola 2004, 58). Lehtola puts in the right words when saying:
“In the atmosphere of changing ideology, ideas about the value of individuals and the rights
of small peoples and minorities improved so that the United Nations added an important section to its Charter securing serious attention for the priority of aboriginal peoples’ rights”
(2004, 58). This period of global attention for human rights sparked, to some extent, Sámi awakening.
Even though Sámi awakening started to emerge in the postwar years, it still took a long time before the actual take-off of a collective Sámi identity. This was for a large part due to the Sámi being divided into four countries. Even though the Sámi have always been a heterogeneous group, with different languages, ways of living and culture, they were
connected as one people (Lehtola 2004, 58). But now, the borders had created literally a distance between the Sámi, which led to a division in culture and language that did not exist before. This is evident in the creation of the first Sámi associations, that only focused on the country in which they were founded.
Stigmatization was another reason why Sámi awakening took a few decades (Lehtola
2004, 62; Eidheim 1971). “Many Sámi, experiencing rapid modernization, had adopted the majority population’s ideals and even rejected their own Sáminess” (Lehtola 2004, 62). In a
labels, such as ‘Lapp’ (how Sámi were called during that time) and Norwegians were shaped (1971, 51). He says: “The consistent though not public use of such labels [Sámi, Norwegian]
indicates that an ethnic identity is a topic of importance in the relationships between
persons carrying contrasting as well as similar identities” (Eidheim 1971, 51). He goes on
discussing the symbols attached to an identity cleavage, with language being the most obvious one. To be clear, the situation for the coastal Sámi was different from the Sámi living in inner Finnmark, as in the places such as Karasjok and Kautokeino Sámi made up the
majority of the population (Eidheim 1971, 51). Eidheim made a similar type of observation I have made almost 40 years later, that ‘signs of Sáminess’ are more visible in the inlands of
Finnmark than more to the coast or to the south (1971, 52). With these signs, he and I mean clothing, objects such as the lavvu, drying reindeer skins, and using Sámi as a public
language. When I visited Alta, on the coast of Finnmark, I did not observe any of these signs, even though presumably many Sámi live here.
Eidheim finds out that most of the Sámi he speaks to are bothered that they do not fluently speak Norwegian as they have the feeling that their low standard of living (lower than that of the Norwegians in the fjord) are because they are seen as Sámi (1971, 55). He observes this also in their behavior towards Norwegians and other Sámi’s. The Sámi from the coast are emphasizing certain traits to nomad Sámi, such as the cleanliness of their houses (assumption made by Norwegians was that Sámi are unclean), the way they speak Norwegian (another assumption is that Sámi are stupid and cannot speak Norwegian) and how they decorate their houses (comfortable, just like Norwegians life) (Eidheim 1971, 56). Another very important observation, related to this, is that the Sámi in the fjords believe it is necessary and right that their children learn Norwegian, and no Sámi. To quote a respondent from Eidheim: “They shall not have the same handicap as we have had” (1971, 57).
Not teaching Sámi children any Sámi languages was strengthened by the schooling
system (Lehtola 2004, 62). Giving up one’s culture, boarding schools contributed to almost a
complete generation not knowing any Sámi. In these schools the language that was spoken and taught was Norwegian, which for most children was a foreign language to them.
traditional handicrafts, duodji, experienced a revival. In Norway, Sámi organizations started
to form, such as the Norway’s National Organization of Sámi (NSR) (Lehtola 2004, 70). This
organization played an important role in changing attitudes of Norwegians towards Sámi’s.
However, this did not mean that the relationship between Norwegians and Sámi had
improved. Even in the 1970s this relationship remained problematic (Lehtola 2004, 70). The Alta conflict can be seen as a turning point for this.
Before describing the Alta Conflict, that took place from 1968 till 1982, it is important to realize the special relation Sámi have with nature (Lehtola 2004, 72). Many Sámi
depended on nature in their livelihoods and realized that nature needs time to recover. In the postwar reconstruction period, there was need for large quantities of natural resources. Especially the construction of large dams was very damaging to the natural environment (Lehtola 2004, 72). This happened throughout the whole of Sápmi, affecting the lives of many Sámi, especially reindeer herders, as large areas were flooded. The plan was to build another large dam in the Alta-Kautokeino river, but this was met with large resistance from Sámi people and environmentalists. For the Sámi, “the immediate issue was the right to decide on the use of their own areas” (Lehtola 2004, 72).
During these protests, in which the protesters were met with violence from officials, the Sámi demanded to be recognized as an indigenous people and have an elected Sámi political body (Lehtola 2004, 72). Despite all the protests, the building of the dam continued and the power plant opened in 1987. However, the consequences of this large protest were positive for the Sámi. Especially the use of violence against the Sámi made that many Norwegians grew sympathy for them, but also fueled Sámi identity of many Sámi (Lehtola 2004, 72). The results for Sámi art was also large, as many artists participated in the protest and experienced a cultural awakening themselves. Materiality played an important role in the protests: Sámi were wearing gákti’s and protesters put up a lavvu in front of the Norwegian parliament. During this period, the Sámi flag was born. But the most striking results of all was that the Norwegian government changed its policy towards the Sámi (Lehtola 2004, 73). This started with a state committee on Sámi affairs that would monitor Sámi issues discussed in Norwegian parliament. One decade later, the Sámi were recognized as indigenous people and realized their own representative body (Lehtola 2004, 73).
First of all, what is visible is that the global tendencies also have an effect on local or national policies. Finnmark being located next to the former Soviet Union, made (and to some extent still makes) it a strategic important region for Norway, which explains Norway’s desire to
have a strong presence there. The schooling policies have shown how important language is in shaping or claiming an identity. The effects of this are now, in 2017, still visible, as the Norwegian Sámi president does not speak any Sámi, which led to high controversy (Måsø and Boine Verstad 2017). World War II has shown the importance of material culture for
expressing one’s identity. Losing one’s material culture, such as personal belongings but also
on a large scale the whole architecture of one region, has been a major contributor to accelerating the assimilation period. The postwar years meant a global dialogue on human rights, which were positive for the Sámi. However, it was still too early for these global tendencies to be put into direct action. But the first glances of Sámi awakening were visible.
2.3 Sámi politics nowadays
The political situation of the Sámi nowadays differs per country (Henriksen 1999). In Norway, Sweden and Finland the Sámi have a Sameting, a Sámi parliament which has advisory powers towards the governments. They are also able to choose their
representatives, which is not possible for the Sámi in Russia. So, there is no overarching Sámi parliament, but it is active in the countries the Sámi live in.
Even though there is no Sámi parliament for the Sámi living in the four countries, there is the Sámi Council, founded in 1956 as many Sámi thought it important to cooperate to promote Sámi rights, as one people (Henriksen 2004, 27). The representatives in the Sámi council are elected from the four countries every four years. The main goal of the Sámi is
“to protect and develop the Saami people’s economic, cultural, linguistic and social rights and rights to livelihood” (Henriksen 2004, 27). The Sámi council also has an advisory role in the United Nations and can participate in events that are about indigenous peoples, which has been of great significance. The Sámi council also is a member of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum that works on promoting interaction between Arctic states (2015).
Larsen. The Sámediggi has achieved quite a few things (Lehtola 2004, 80). For example, they have worked on the situation of the Sea Sámi. People are positive about the Sámediggi, but there are of course also more skeptical voices. For example, there was doubt if the
Sámediggi would indeed have actual powers or that “it had been founded only to assuage the conscience of Norwegian politicians” (Lehtola 2004, 82). The Norwegian King, first King
Olaf and later King Harald, has been supportive of the Sámediggi (Lehtola 2004, 82). In the opening session of 1997, King Harald even gave a speech about Sámi rights and apologized for the assimilation policies of the Norwegian state (2004, 82).
2.4 Sámi struggles nowadays
There are still quite a few challenges for the Sámi, which I want to discuss in short here. These are the stigmatization from the non-Sámi community, language, the changing environment, land rights, and preserving cultural traditions and livelihoods.
The Sámi are still facing stigmatization around being Sámi. Stigmatization means that
“society established the means of categorizing persons and the complement of attributes felt to be ordinary and natural for members of each of these categories” (Goffman 1963, 2). Being Sámi is still not seen by every non-Sámi as equal. This is for example evident in news articles. Recently, Sámi people who wore the gákti on the national day of Norway on the 17th of May were shouted at and threatened (NRK 2017). Stigmatization is also evident in the story one of my respondent told me about how she found out at age 18 that she has a Sámi background. Even her father did not know that his father was Sámi. Because of the
stigmatization, he abolished his Sámi heritage and did not tell or teach his children anything. When my respondent found out, she started to develop her own Sámi identity, but this was met with a lot of resistance from her family. If people would find out that she is Sámi, people would know that her whole family is Sámi. It was only after a while that her family became accepting of it and also started to engage more with this unknown family history. She
explained to me that some people are still hesitant to speak out of their Sámi history as they are afraid that they will not be fully accepted. The events around the 17th of May
unfortunately ascribe to the fact that some non-Sámi people are still not accepting Sámi people.
research, within the Sámi there are ideas about who are ‘real’ Sámi and who are ‘fake’ Sámi.
These are not my words, but one of my respondents addressed this. According to her, supposedly ‘fake’ Sámi are people who have recently become aware of their Sámi
background and have not had a ‘Sámi upbringing’, Therefore do not fully understand what it is to be Sámi, she said. In addition to this, a few of my respondents also talked about
stigmatization from the Norwegian government. There is this believe that even though there are laws that give the Sámi rights, the implementation of these are deliberately at the expense of Sámi, as a respondent at the Karasjok Museum told me.
Language remains an important issue. Many people born after the second World War do not speak any Sámi language, but they still are Sámi. The current Sámi president of the Norwegian Sámi parliament for example, does not speak any Sámi. Also in the official way of claiming that you are Sámi, language plays an important role. In Norway, one can claim to be Sámi when at least one of the parents or grandparents spoke Sámi language (Henriksen 1999, 23). Many Sámi people want their children to learn Sámi language in schools, but in parts of Norway there are not enough teachers available. As a respondent in Karasjok told me, in some schools the children therefore have Sámi classes through Skype and once in a few months they go for a school trip to Finnmark to be surrounded by the Sámi language, but this does not happen on large scale. For many Sámi children it is not possible to retrieve an education only in Sámi language.
Other struggles for some Sámi people are the changing environment and land rights. Especially Sámi whose livelihood still depends on nature, for example reindeer herders and fishers, are experiencing negative results of the changing climate. Winters in Finnmark have changed. For me, one meter of snow was still much, but everyone told me that this was less snow than what they usually have. Another result is that the snow melts quicker but freezes again at night, so that there is an icy layer on top of the grass. Before, the reindeer would push away the snow with their noses to retrieve the grass, but because of the icy layer they do not reach grass. This has had as result that the reindeer have become significantly smaller in the past 50 years (The Guardian 2016).
Another struggle some Sámi are facing is persevering traditional livelihoods and culture. Again, this is something that especially reindeer herders are dealing with. But also, coastal Sámi, even though due to the assimilation period, there is barely no ‘traditional’
Chapter 3.
Theoretical background
Throughout this research, there are a few concepts that recur and play an important part: identity and identity formation, material culture, museums and museum
representation, and being indigenous. These are all concepts that stand on their own but are also conversing with each other. Some of them might seem straight forward, but as they can also have multiple meanings, it is necessary to discuss the possible definitions and the definition that is used in this research. These concepts are visible in the sub questions of this research:
1. How are material culture and identity of Sámi represented in the Volkenkunde
Museum in Leiden and in museums in Norway?
2. How have the Sámi struggled for indigenous rights and what role did representations of identity and material culture in museums play in this struggle?
3. What role does Sámi material culture play during identity formation?
4. What effect had the Sámi cultural revitalization on Sámi identity and Sámi material culture?
Why these questions have been chosen and the relation with the concepts, will be discussed more in-depth in the next chapter.
I will start with discussing identity and identity formation, as these are concepts and phenomena that take place throughout the entire research: in museums, through material culture, at home, in society. Thereafter I will discuss material culture and the power it can have, followed by an account on museums and museum representation. Identity is
important in understanding museum representation. Being indigenous is the last concept to discuss. As my research field are indigenous peoples, I feel I should mention what this could mean to people. Often, indigenous knowledge is the opposite of ‘western knowledge’ and I
therefore feel it is important to discuss this before moving on with the rest of this research.
3.1 Identity and identity formation
identity and collective identity, as this is an important part in of this research. Often people speak, including me, of the Sámi, as a group, and addressing the identity. Of course, it is not possible to talk about the Sámi identity, but perhaps the concept of collective identity can be used instead of making unfounded generalizations about the behavior of a group.
Identity
Who are you? How do other people see you? Important questions in the matter of identity. However explaining identity is not simply done by answering these questions. Identity has many meanings (Jenkins 1996, 5). Who you are or who you are perceived as, can have different implications. Can you go to another country easily? Are you threatened because you look different than your neighbor or the majority of the community? Are you forced to take on an identity that does not feel like yours? The concept identity plays an important role in this research as it is focused on identity representation and the formation
of one’s identity. Identity and identity formation plays an important role in the history of the Sámi in Norway. The Sámi endured almost an era of assimilation. People were forced to adjust to another lifestyle and habits and learn another language. Besides that, the Sámi were treated as subordinate and many Sami people felt they were second-rate citizens (Eidheim 1971). This was followed by a period of cultural revitalization. Institutions such as museums have played a major role in representing a certain collective identity of the Sámi. Altogether, this not only had an impact on the image of Sámi people and on the collective identity, but also on individual identities of Sámi people.
Simply put, one can say that the meaning of identity is the way someone feels different compared to other people (Lurhmann 2001, 532). Identity in this sense describes the difference between people. What sets someone apart from the other? This might have been the definition at one point, but anthropologists nowadays, see a different meaning (Luhrmann 2001, 532). Erik Erikson used to be the main theorist of identity and he saw
identity as “a kind of consolidation of self, so that when someone acquired her identity, the way she interacted with the world – her ability to trust, to work, and to play – was
recognized externally by others in a way that was consonant with her own internal
Jenkins gives the following definition of identity: “As a very basic starting point,
identity is the human capacity … to know ‘who’s who’ (and hence ‘what’s what’). This
involved knowing who we are, knowing who others are, them knowing who we are, us knowing who they think we are, and so on: a multi-dimensional classification or mapping of the human world and our places in it, as individuals and as members of collectivities” (1996,
5). It is a process. According to this description, external influences do play a role on identity, something that is overlooked by Erikson (Lurhmann 2001, 532). According to Lurhmann, three reasons make that describing identity is not as simple as Erikson describes. These are,
according to Luhrmann: “the postmodern turn in anthropology and elsewhere in the social
sciences; the recent focus on power and agency; and the emergence of what is called
‘identity politics’” (2001, 532). Even though all of these events suggest a different
perspective on identity, it is possible to make a few generalizations. Basically, it is not possible to see identity as something unitary, as Erikson did (Lurhmann 2001, 532). Building on this identity is also not “a match between inner experience and outer acknowledgment” nor can it be seen as a “developmental achievement” (Lurhmann 2001, 532). I will now discuss these three influences in identity theory a bit more in depth.
Due to postmodernism, identity can be perceived as a performance, something you present (Lurhmann 2001, 534). Following this, it is understandable that someone can have multiple identities, depending on the audience. The second influence in identity theory is
power and agency: “Its relevance to identity theory lies in the way agency is understood to act within the constraints of external power” (Lurhmann 2001, 534). Holland, Lachiotte,
Skinner and Cain in their book ‘Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds’ define identity as the
following: “People tell others who they are, but even more important, they tell themselves
and then try to act as though they are who they say they are. These self-understandings, especially those with strong emotional resonance for the teller, are what we refer to as
identities” (1998, 3). They continue: “Identity is a concept that figuratively combines the
intimate or personal world with the collective space of cultural forms and social relations”
(Holland et all. 1998, 5). To me these definitions refer to the fact that identity is both personal, but has also to do with the world around you, the context.
Important for the definition of identity are the terms agency and person (Luhrmann 2001, 532). According to Luhrmann ‘person’“is an other-centered term. It evokes an
common qualities of those who have selves” (Luhrmann 2001, 533). As Janet Hoskins discusses, agency can mean the “capacity to act” (2006, 74). Hoskins has been influential with her work on how persons, identities, are interacting with objects. She describes this in
her research about the Kodi in Indonesia: “What I discovered, quite to my surprise, was that
I could not collect the histories of objects and the life histories of persons separately. People and the things they valued were so complexly intertwined they could not be disentangled”
(Hoskins 1998, 2). People’s identities are subject to objects around them. Material culture
and one’s identity, are therefore, as Hoskins said, intertwined. I will discuss this more in the
part on material culture.
Coming back to the point that identity must be seen in its own context, Geertz says
that the Western conception of a person is a “rather peculiar idea within the context of the world’s cultures” (Geertz 1983, 59). He means that when looking at persons we have to look at them “within the framework of their own of what selfhood is” and therefore not placing
them in our own, perhaps western context, but in their own context (Geertz 1983, 59). One remark I have to make here is about the self. Does the self even exist without objects? Is it not undeniable, especially in this research, that the self is shaped by objects surrounding someone? This will be addressed later in chapter six.
The third influence in identity theory is cultural studies, and especially postcolonial studies and the study focused on identity politics. In the case of the Sámi, I feel it is only appropriate to discuss identity and colonialism. As the previous chapter explained Sámi history more thoroughly, the Sámi have experienced a period of assimilation and
colonization. They were forced to give up their own habits and ideals. Albert Memmi has
written the important book ‘The Colonizerand the Colonized’ which describes the process of the colonized wanting to be like to colonizer only realizing later that he can never be the same and comes into uprising (1965, 127). In the words of Luhrmann, if the colonized
succeeds in this: “he remains still tortured, still living in a psyche defined by the colonizer,
defined by what he is not” (2001, 534). “So goes the drama of the man who is a product and victim of colonialism. He almost never succeeds in corresponding with himself” (Memmi 1965, 127).
the coastal Sámi (Eidheim 1971). This can have the consequence that the subordinate sees themselves in the way the superior does (Lurhmann 2001, 534). “Identity politics takes this
central relationship between a dominant group and a subordinate group, an us and a them, and makes theories out of the attempts to change it” (Lurhmann 2001, 534). Identity politics has played a very important role in Sámi history, both during the assimilation period as during the cultural revitalization, during which Sámi started to use identity politics for their own gain (Olsen 2004). As Jenkins says: “As a collective identity that may have a massive
presence in the experience of individuals, ethnicity –including for the moment, ‘race’ – is often an important and early dimension of self-identification” (1996, 87). Bhabha, an important scholar on identity politics, in the words of Lurhmann: “suggests that the post -colonial subject, the marginal subject, is someone who feels that her capacity for self-declaration has been taken from her repeatedly through a long history in which she has been forced to conform to the dominant culture’s prejudices and biases” (Luhrmann 2001, 535; Bhabha 1990). This is something that I have witnessed during my fieldwork when talking to some of my respondents. Every action from the Norwegian government is weighted against years of assimilation. I believe it is therefore that under my respondents there is still a lot of distrust to the Norwegian government and society for that matter, as the feeling of full self-declaration, despite all the rights that have been given to the Sámi, is not fully met due to doubtful implementation of those rights.
Collective identity
In this research, it is important to discuss if there is a difference between collective and individual identity. I believe there is. When I am talking about a culture, I am talking
the group, who have a certain incentive to frame a group in a certain way. In the case of Norway, it was necessary for the Norwegianization to make sure that all the Sámi were seen as backwards people (Eidheim 1971). During the cultural revitalization, Sámi political actors and even museums, framed the Sámi collective in a certain way to make the movement larger and get support. It was important that people would feel like they were a part of this
‘group’.
It is clear that the Sámi are a heterogeneous group, made up of individuals all with their own identities, of which some also feel connected to this collective identity and some do not. As we will see further in this research, museums can play a role in representing this collective identity. Polletta and Jasper define collective identity as “an individual’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connections with a broader community, category, practice, or
institution” which is often indicated through the traditions of the group (2001, 285). These
collective identities “are expressed in cultural materials – names, narratives, symbols, verbal styles, rituals, clothing, and so on –but not all cultural materials express collective identities”
(Polletta and Japser 2001, 285). I think this latter point is very important, especially in the case of the Sámi, as there is a more dominant collective identity that only fits a limited amount of people, namely reindeer herding Sámi (Webb 2006, 172). Not ascribing to a collective identity does not mean that one is not Sámi. It just means that that person does not connects to that particular community.
Another important point that is made by Polletta and Jasper is that this collective identity can also be “constructed by outsiders” (2001, 285). I would like to argue that the
formation of a collective identity has happened on different levels. First of all in museums.
Webb says the following about this: “Narratives woven in the earlier Sámi museums
produced a simple, instantly recognizable and necessarily idealized ‘Sámi-ness’, as far from
the majority population as possible in order for it to be recognizable” (2006, 180). Here she
talks about Sámi museums founded by Sámi people who established a collective identity for their own political agenda, but I believe Norwegian museums also played a role (Webb 2006, 178). As Webb says: “Museums have had a profound effect on the indigenous culture, but by gaining control of the medium, Sámi have used it to their own ends” (2006, 178). For
example, the museum in Karasjok was one of the first to receive state funding as this
museum was not seen as being political. However, “On both a conceptual and practical level,
could organize” (Webb 2006, 178). Secondly, I argue that society, the Norwegian
government and the own political movement of the Sámi has influence on the formation of collective identity. In this research, I do not want to discuss how a collective identity
formation exactly takes place, but I do want to make clear that all these levels have influence on shaping identity.
The identity formation of Sámi people is largely influenced by 100 years of harsh assimilation policies followed by a period of cultural revitalization. Harald Eidheim, a
Norwegian social anthropologist, is an example of a scholar who has written a great deal on Sámi identity and identity formation in the 1970s and 80s. Even though this is a few decades back, his books and articles are still very interesting to read for understanding the current situation of the Sámi. Perhaps precisely because they are from the previous century, written
during the assimilation and Norwegianization period. In his book ‘Aspects of the Lappish Minority System’ he writes about ethnic identity being a social stigma by looking at his case of the Sámi in West Finnmark (Eidheim 1971, 50-51). He has taken West Finnmark and the coastal Sámi as an example to look at how an identity develops when there is a social stigma. The coastal Sámi live in an area where also Norwegians live, in contrast to the Sámi living in inland Finnmark where they make up 90% of the population (Eidheim 1971, 51). Eidheim discovers through conversations with the coastal Sámi that they want to be as
‘Norwegian’as possible, because by ‘being Norwegian’ they have more opportunities than what they would have if they were seen as Sámi (1971, 54-55).
3.2 Material culture and its power
Every day we use objects, see objects, buy objects. Objects tell a story. For a long
time “Material culture was the manifestation of other cultures, other worlds, and was
sufficient alone to capture the interest and imagination of a public audience” (Haas 1996, 7). Often anthropological or ethnographic museums were the warehouses of these objects. Material culture is a term that arrived in the 20th century within archeology and cultural anthropology and the study of it grew during the 1980s and 90s (Appadurai 1986; Hicks and Beaudry 2010, 25; Ter Keurs 2011). In 1996, the ‘Journal of Material Culture’ was first
There are discomforts with the idea of material culture that can be identified. Firstly,
the idea of culture: can we speak of a culture? Secondly, when we speak of ‘material’ we then also have the ‘immaterial’. The question arises if it then is useful to speak of material culture as we also categorize immaterial then. And thirdly, should we place these two, perhaps somewhat problematic terms of material and culture, together? (Hicks and Beaudry 2010, 26-27). Tilley also confirms this: “Yet the ‘material’ and the ‘culture’ are commonly regarded as fundamentally opposed” (2006, 1).
Having an important role in the disciplines of archeology and cultural anthropology, material cultural studies however is interdisciplinary (Miller 2010, 2; Tilley 2006, 1). “This
field of study centers on the idea that materiality is an integral dimension of culture, and
that there are dimensions of social existence that cannot be fully understood without it”
(Tilley 2006, 1). Material culture was often seen as something that reflects a certain culture, in the sense that it thought us about a certain culture (Hicks and Beaudry 2010, 354).
Miller in his book ‘Stuff’ does not give a definition of stuff and material culture, as he sees it as a hopeless task to define what stuff is and what is not (2010, 1). He argues that objects actually do not represent us, but that they create us. The dominant theory of materialism seems to be that objects are symbols of representation (Miller 2010, 12). Especially clothing would be seen as an object that is used to show a certain message, for example where you are from. Miller argues that clothes are nothing more than things
without a real meaning and therefore wonders “what and where is this self that the clothes
represent?” (2010, 13). If you would get rid of all the clothes, what would you be left with? According to Miller you would not be left with your true inner self. He therefore thinks that
“the clothes were not superficial, they actuallywere what made us what we think we are”
(Miller 2010, 13). Stuff, in this case clothes, make us something, instead of we using stuff to represent our selves.
Another important term I already touched upon during the part on identity, is agency. Agency is also important regarding material culture, and might be used to connect identity and objects together, as Hoskins showed earlier (1998, 6).
Alfred Gell is an important scholar regarding agency and his work can be used to explain this term more in-depth (1998). He has written the book ‘Art and Agency’, in which
he argues how art can be used as an instrument to influence others (Gell 1998). Objects are more than symbols. They are, according to Gell, systems of actions (1998, 5). He talks about artworks not in the aesthetic sense, but about art as social agents: “persons or ‘social agents’ are … substituted for by art objects” (Gell 1998, 5). Gell defines agency as persons and things that are “seen as initiating causal sequences of a particular type, that is, events caused by
acts of mind or will or intention, rather than the mere concatenation of physical events” (1998, 16). Agent then “initiate ‘actions’ which are ‘caused’ by themselves, by their
intentions, not by the physical laws of the cosmos” (Gell 1998, 16). I believe this latter point is the most important in understanding the agency of objects. Objects hold some sort of power with which they can influence people.
Pierre Bourdieu is another important name in the study of material culture (Bourdieu 1972; Miller 2010, 51; Jenkins 1992). Miller follows the argument of Bourdieu in saying that becoming part of society, as an individual, you will not learn this by getting an education, but because people are instilled in habits of society through the way they interact with each other during everyday traditions and practices (Miller 2010, 52-53). Miller continues: “In Bourdieu’s account the key operator in making us characteristic of our own society is stuff”
(2010, 52). Bourdieu “argues that what, in industrial societies, we now tend to inculcate
through formal education happens to children born in to Kabyle society [a North African Berber community] through a process of habituation with the order of the things around
them” (Miller 2010, 52-53). Miller continues: “By learning to interact with a whole slew of
different material cultures, an individual grows up assuming the norms that we call culture”
