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P-SAMISK-Program for samisk forskning

The Societal Dimensions of Sami Research: The Production and Implementation of Knowledge in the High North

Alternative title: Sammfunnsmessige dimensjoner knytt til samisk forsking: produksjon og implementering av kunnskap i nord

Awarded: NOK 6.8 mill.

SoDiSámi, The Societal Dimensions of Sámi Research, has studied ways in which different institutional and societal conditions and discourses have affected knowledge production of Sámi culture and history in Nordic countries. The project has also had the goal of studying ways in which academic knowledge production has affected Sámi societies. Our focus has been on changes caused by the paradigm change from Lappology to Sámi research: from research undertaken by researchers from outside the Sámi society to research that takes its starting-point in the needs of the Sámi society. Project members have shed light on ways in which changes in the relations between research and society are visible in museum institutions, and how academic knowledge of the Sámi has been used in digital media. A Ph.D. candidate with four year funding from the UiT Arctic University of Norway has been integrated into the project since 2018. The Ph.D. candidate is analysing knowledge production in two Sámi museum institutions, Várdobáiki Samisk senter and Árran Lulesamisk senter. Research on themes relating to museums was published in a special issue of Nordisk Museologi (27:3, 2019). The articles show the different ways in which representations of and knowledge production relating to Sámi cultures are tied to changes in societal discourses. The latest development, the ongoing ?Sámification? of research and research administration, inspired by indigenous methodology, will be thematized in a forthcoming anthology, Sámi Research in Transition: Knowledge, Politics and Social Change (Routledge 2021). In all the fields studied, the Sámi voices have grown in strength. A Sámi starting-point and a utility value are expected from research, but we have also identified numerous systemic barriers, both in academia and in society. The competing voices are numerous, perhaps loudest in digital media. In 2020, the project launched an online exhibition, The Objects: Materiality in Sámi Research?, in which we presented the results of the project through texts, taking material objects as a starting-point (https://sodisami.net/).

Prosjektet har auka deltakande forskarar si evne til multidisiplinært samarbeid og forsking. Ny kunnskap har blitt produsert knytt til paradigmeskifte og til «samifisering» av samisk forsking. Resultata frå prosjektet har nytteverdi med tanke på kompetanseheving relatert til eit samisk forskingsfelt. Samtidig som prosjektet avdekka fleire gjennombrot der samar har fått eit breiare handlingsrom i akademia, har forskinga vår også avdekka mange diskursar som står i opposisjon til samisk kunnskapsproduksjon i akademia. Me kan også vise til ei utviding av SoDiSami, prosjektet New Sámi Renaissance: Nordic Colonialism, Social Change and Indigenous Cultural Policy, prosj.nr. 315708. Dette betyr at vår forskarnettverk skal fortsette å jobbe med samisk- og samfunnsrelaterte problemstillingar. Konkrete fylgjer av prosjektet inneber positive sysselsettingseffektar for fleire prosjektpartnarar og rekruttering av yngre forskarar.

The starting point for the project is the recognition of the deep inter-connectedness between research and society. How have the discourses and contexts within which the researchers have worked influenced Sámi research, and what kind of impact has research had on national policies, on the societal discourses on the Sámi, and on Sámi societies themselves? The project covers Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish research on the Sámi from the Lappologist era to the present. Working package 1 charts how the paradigmatic shift associated with a transition from Lappologist to Sámi research in the 1970s and 1980s, when new obligations from the social sciences were introduced, impacted upon the Nordic societies and their policies towards the Sami. These issues will be studied comparatively, as situational and context-specific phenomena. WP2 explores museums as arenas for the production and dissemination of knowledge on Sámi cultures, societies and identities. The museums studied include 1) Tromsø University Museum; 2) Nordiska Museet; and 3) the four Sámi museum institutions in Norway, Sweden and Finland. We analyze the manner in which earlier research at the national museums is adapted and used in order to contribute to the Sámi revitalization processes. Secondly, we seek to generate new knowledge on the ways in which current research, representations, collections, and archives produced by museums impact upon and are implemented within Sámi communities. WP3 charts the ways in which Sami Research has been entangled and used within the Nordic media. What roles has media given to academic knowledges concerning the Sámi and how are these knowledges circulated and applied in media contexts? How do images produced and discourses articulated in media affect the focus and results of the researchers, and thus the professional and disseminated understandings of Sami pasts and presents.

Publications from Cristin

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P-SAMISK-Program for samisk forskning