Cultural Revitalisation: ‘Feeding on the Tools of the Conquerors’—A Sami-American Perspective

Abstract

The Sami are one of the world’s many Indigenous peoples, and one of Europe’s few Indigenous people. Numbering somewhere between 25,000 and 250,000, depending on the counting method used, the Sami people (derogatorily known as ‘Lapps’) live in the northern Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden and Finland, and on the Kola Peninsula of Russia—an area that the Sami call Sapmi. The Sami have a history of coexistence with their Nordic neighbours, but they have also endured forced, coerced and incentivised cultural assimilation into the dominant cultures where they reside. The history of the Sami in their respective Nordic counties is similar to the histories of exploitation of other Indigenous peoples. The borders drawn across the Scandinavian landscape have more meaning to the Nordic countries than they do for the Sami, as families are often on both sides of these government-created barriers.