Indigenous Aesthetics: Add Context to Context

Nordisk Museologi, 2016

Nordic Sámi museums have been established with the aim of reclaiming Sámi heritage and strengthening Sámi cultural identity. Museums are significant places for representing ethnic groups and boundaries, and Sámi museums play an important role in defining Sámi ethnicity. This article discusses the construction of Sámi ethnicity in the permanent exhibitions of two Sámi museums, Siida in Finland and Ájtte in Sweden, focusing on the display of reindeer herding. In which particular ways do these exhibitions represent reindeer herding and the Sámi as reindeer herders? The article suggests that representations of reindeer herding contribute to the construction of an ethnic boundary, while having relevance also for the internal conflicts among the Sámi.

2018

This article looks at the creation of Iceland's capital, Reykjavík, as an Arctic tourism destination with a focus on souvenir production and consumption. We regard souvenirs to be particularly interesting for investigating the creation and materialization of the Arctic, in the light of how landscapes, in our case the urban landscape of Reykjavík, are constantly performed and narrated through objects. A special attention is given to the Atlantic Puffin that in recent years has become the Icelandic souvenir sine qua non and a veritable symbol for souvenir consumption in Iceland. We explore the urban landscapes of downtown Reykjavík with a focus on puffins in order to introduce the city's tensioned landscapes, especially regarding the complex material composition and meanings of the Atlantic Puffin in order to gain an understanding of its role in shaping the Arctic landscapes of Reykjavík.

Time and Mind, 2021

In this paper I discuss a set of photographs taken by my daughters with disposable cameras, to consider how they perceived an archaeological expedition to northernmost Sápmi (Finnish Lapland). My daughters’ photographic documentation illustrates the views that children from southern Finland have on archaeological fieldwork in an extreme northern environment. Their photographs resemble partly the tourism promotional imagery and Instagram posts, which place emphasis on the impressive landscape, engaging activities, and the gear related to those activities. Based on these imageries, and my personal impressions, the genius loci of this area for outsiders are largely defined by the mountainous scenery and midsummer snow, both unique to this region within Finland. My daughters’ imagery conveys a mixture of familiarity and alienation. There is an awe of facing the new and alien, immersive mountain landscape and the novelty of, e.g., a helicopter ride to the study site in the middle of a roadless wilderness, and a fascination in the familiar expedition activities together with trusted people which creates a sense of at-homeness. The familiar actions carried out by familiar people appear to act as important means for placemaking and securing the being-in-the-world, which carries also wider importance beyond this case study.

AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 2008

Nils-Aslak Valkeapää (1943–2001) was the greatest Sámi multimedia artist. He made his debut as an author in 1971 and is so far the only Sámi who has been awarded the prestigious Nordic Council's literature prize, for his book of poetry and old photographs Beaivi, áhčážan (1989) (The Sun, My Father [1997]). In this article Harald Gaski provides an analysis of two of Valkeapää's most renowned pieces of lyrical writing. Both are long-poems; the first one is a tribute to indigenous peoples’ values and philosophy while the other one is only available in its Sámi original and thus a linguistic and cultural manifestation. It is a challenge, therefore, for the author of this essay to explicate for a foreign reader why and how the poem represents a migrating reindeer herd and why the content of both poems is relevant and important for indigenous peoples today.

2013

Hurridocs CIP data The reproduction and distribution of information contained in The Indigenous World is welcome as long as the source is cited. However, the translation of articles into other languages and the reproduction of the whole BOOK is not allowed without the consent of IWGIA. The articles in The Indigenous World are produced on a voluntary basis. It is IWGIA’s intention that The Indigenous World should provide a comprehensive update on the situation of indigenous peoples worldwide but, unfortunately, it is not always possible to find authors to cover all relevant countries. The articles reflect the authors’ own views and opinions and not necessarily those of IWGIA itself. IWGIA can furthermore not be held responsible for the accuracy of their content. The Indigenous World is published annually in English and Spanish.

2018

17. Knowing Nature Malin Andersson1 1 Department of Service Management, Lund Unversity Abstract: The aim of this article is to problematize tourism enterprising shermen ́s understanding of nature. From a discourse-theoretic outlook, I explore how shermen “know” nature. Here, “knowing nature” is a positioning practice which means that views of nature are uttered and negotiated by people in relation to another person or a group of people. The empirical material that is analyzed was created for a coming dis- sertation exploring how a traditional industry like sheries is formed and negotiated in the service-oriented economy. The ethnographic material consists of interviews, obser- vations and text-material and was collected in tourism enterprising sheries along the west coast of Sweden, between 2011-2016. First, the tourism enterprising shermen ́s knowledge of nature is formed with refer- ence to sheries authorities. The management of sheries is decentralized as the idea of governance is spreading in EU. Governance creates challenges while the actors have to negotiate different knowledges of nature where sustainability is a term open to interpretations and is being understood from different vantage points. Second, knowledge concerning nature is formed and negotiated in shermen ́ relation- ships to visiting consumers. The tourism enterprising shermen present their knowledge of nature as “authentic” and appreciated by visitors, who are described as ignorant. Third, the shermen ́s talk about nature focus on ecological sustainability and moral aspects. The shermen do an active repositioning from rejecting being depletioning actors, to positioning themselves as market aware, ecologically skilled, informative and responsible fishermen.

Great Narratives of the Past. Traditions and Revisions in National Museumsopen access publication, Linköping University Press, 2012

The question of how and where Sámi culture is best represented is a debated issue in Norway. However, politically the problem has been "solved" through the establishment of Sámi museums, run by Sámi people and administered by the Sámi Assembly. The first Sámi museum in Norway was RiddoDuottarMuseat-Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat (RDM-SVD) in Karasjok. Sámi museums have, however, been subjected to considerable criticism. They have been accused for propagating ethnic reification and presenting a stereotypical and static image of Sámi culture and identity. The exhibitions are seen as replicas of conventional ethnographic displays, tending to represent Sámi culture as belonging to a traditional, pre-modern past, due to a lack of chronological narration and historical anchoring. Based on fieldwork at the RDM-SVD, this article presents an analysis of the exhibition practices that challenges such earlier readings. We argue that far from replicating the exhibition language of dominant western ethnography, the exhibitions can be seen as an effort to undermine the conceptions of time and history of the dominant society. Based on a study of the museum display as a total experience, our alternative reading suggests that the museum, by evoking a mythical landscape through aesthetic means, inscribes itself into a Sámi conception of time and space-a Sámi understanding of reality. Thus, we also address the debate concerning museums in non-western spaces, and the question of recognizing indigenous curatorial practices. Not least the art section leaves an impression of a museum space less marked by closure than earlier readings suggest. Here the museum opens up for articulations with the wider world, as Sámi contemporary art not only speaks from a position of a particular locality; it also communicates with the international art scene and incorporates visions and perspectives from a global or multiple world 1 .

1988

Il est extrêmement inquiétant de constater que des quantités « massives » d’équipements militaires chinois avancés ont été découvertes à Gaza par Tsahal au cours de ses opérations militaires là-bas. L’attaque du Hamas orchestrée par l’Iran contre Israël le 7 octobre – qui a entraîné des viols massifs, le meurtre de 1 200 hommes, femmes, enfants et nourrissons ; prenant plus de 250 otages et tirant des milliers de roquettes sur des villes israéliennes – a montré que la Chine, qu’Israël aurait pu considérer comme une alliée, s’est malheureusement révélée être davantage un ennemi. La Chine a refusé de condamner le Ha semaine après le massacre et avant même qu’Israël ait lancé son opération terrestre danmas et son invasion terroriste d’Israël, choisissant plutôt de condamner Israël juste unes la bande de Gaza. Les actions d’Israël à Gaza vont « au-delà du cadre de l’autodéfense » et le gouvernement israélien doit « cesser de punir collectivement la population de Gaza », a déclaré le ministre chinois des Affaires étrangères Wang Yi le 15 octobre. Contrairement aux conflits antérieurs entre le Hamas et Israël, la Chine a désormais ouvertement soutenu le Hamas. Le 17 mars, au Qatar, le diplomate chinois Wang Kejian a rencontré le leader du Hamas Ismail Haniyeh et a déclaré : « … Les positions fermes de la Chine à l’égard de la question palestinienne et son soutien aux justes revendications du peuple palestinien en matière de liberté, d’indépendance et de création d’un État… Le Hamas fait partie du tissu national palestinien et la Chine tient à entretenir des relations avec lui. »...