This book examines the significance of the rights of the Sámi people and analyses the issues raised by the recognition and implementation of these rights in the Nordic countries. Written together by Sámi and non-Sámi experts, the book adopts a human rights approach to examine the adequacy of law and policies that seek to protect the culture and livelihood of Sámi communities in their traditional lands and territories. The book discusses contemporary legal and jurisprudential developments in the field of Sámi rights. It examines the processes and challenges in the recognition and implementation of these rights, particularly in relation to the governance of their traditional land and resources. The book will be of particular interest to legal scholars, political scientists, experts in the field of Indigenous peoples’ rights, governmental authorities, and members of Indigenous communities.

This book contributes to the international debate on Indigenous Peoples Law, containing both in-depth research of Scandinavian historical and legal contexts with respect to the Sami and demonstrating current stances in Sami Law research. In addition to chapters by well-known Scandinavian experts, the collection also comments on the legal situation in Norway, Sweden and Finland in relation to other jurisdictions and indigenous peoples, in particular with experiences and developments in Canada and New Zealand. The book displays the current research frontier among the Scandinavian countries, what the present-day issues are and how the nation states have responded so far to claims of Sami rights. The study sheds light on the contrasts between the three countries on the one hand, and between Scandinavia, Canada and New Zealand on the other, showing that although there are obvious differences, for instance related to colonisation and present legal solutions, there are also shared experiences among the indigenous peoples and the States. Filling a gap in an under-researched area of Sami rights, this book will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers with an interest in Indigenous Peoples Law and comparative research.

This open access book is a novel contribution in two ways: It is a multi-disciplinary examination of the indigenous South Saami people in Fennoscandia, a social and cultural group that often is overlooked as it is a minority within the Saami minority. Based on both historical material such as archaeological evidence, 20th century newspapers, and postcard motives as well as current sources such as ongoing land-right trials and recent works of historiography, the articles highlight the culture and living conditions of this indigenous group, mapping the negotiations of different identities through the interaction of Saami and non-Saami people through the ages. By illuminating this under-researched field, the volume also enriches the more general debate on global indigenous history, and sheds light on the construction of a Scandinavian identity and the limits of the welfare state and the myth of heterogeneity and equality.

The Sami are an ancient Arctic culture struggling for existence while adjusting to a modern way of life. They represent values that have enabled them to survive for thousands of years in a harsh northern climate. Here Sami scholars investigate the manifold experiences of an ethnic minority in the welfare state of modern Norway. This collection of articles covers a wide range of topics in present-day Sami life. It deals with some of the problems connected to the modernization of traditional livelihoods, such as reindeer husbandry, and it also delves into the ever-recurring question of how to maintain the identity of a threatened minority. The new roles of education, health care, mass media, and literature are discussed, as well as Sami history from a frontier perspective.

This open access book uses an interdisciplinary approach that not only focuses on social organization but also analyzes how societies and ecological settings were interwoven. How did early modern indigenous Sami inhabitants in interior northwest Fennoscandia build institutions for governance of natural resources? The book answers this question by exploring how they made decisions regarding natural resource management, mainly with regard to wild game, fish, and grazing land and illuminate how Sami users, in a changing economy, altered the long-term rules for use of land and water in a self-governance context. The early modern period was a transforming phase of property rights due to fundamental changes in Sami economy: from an economy based on fishing and hunting to an economy where reindeer pastoralism became the main occupation for many Sami. The book gives a new portrayal of how proficiently and systematically indigenous inhabitants organized and governed natural assets and how capable they were in building highly functioning institutions for governance. Jesper Larsson is an associate professor and senior lecturer in Agrarian History at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. He is an affiliated faculty to the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University Bloomington. This book is part of his appointment as a research fellow at The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. Eva-Lotta Päiviö Sjaunja is a researcher in Agrarian History at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. She is a doctor of philosophy in Agricultural Sciences and did her postdoctoral work at the Department of Economic History at Stockholm University. She also works as senior analyst at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. She is of Sami descent.

Digital media–GIFs, films, TED Talks, tweets, and more–have become integral to daily life and, unsurprisingly, to Indigenous people’s strategies for addressing the historical and ongoing effects of colonization. In Sámi Media and Indigenous Agency in the Arctic North, Thomas DuBois and Coppélie Cocq examine how Sámi people of Norway, Finland, and Sweden use media to advance a social, cultural, and political agenda anchored in notions of cultural continuity and self-determination. Beginning in the 1970s, Sámi have used Sámi-language media—including commercially produced musical recordings, feature and documentary films, books of literature and poetry, and magazines—to communicate a sense of identity both within the Sámi community and within broader Nordic and international arenas. In more contemporary contexts—from YouTube music videos that combine rock and joik (a traditional Sámi musical genre) to Twitter hashtags that publicize protests against mining projects in Sámi lands—Sámi activists, artists, and cultural workers have used the media to undo layers of ignorance surrounding Sámi livelihoods and rights to self-determination. Downloadable songs, music festivals, films, videos, social media posts, images, and tweets are just some of the diverse media through which Sámi activists transform how Nordic majority populations view and understand Sámi minority communities and, more globally, how modern states regard and treat Indigenous populations.