Målet med denna uppsats var att undersöka de nomadiska folkets användning av trä i norra Fennoskandien, samt möjliga analytiska metoder att studera arkeologiskt trämaterial. Detta möjliggjordes genom relevanta etnografiska, historiska och arkeologiska studier och en genomgång av analytiska metoder. De nomadiska folken använde trämaterial i en stor del av deras vardag så som mat i form av den näringsrika inner barken, ved för eldning, till både temporära och permanenta kåtor, förvarning samt jakt. De analytiska metoder som presenteras var träidentifikation, dendrokronologi och 14C-metoden. Träidentifikation möjliggör de två senare metoderna som kan förse tillförlitlig datering beroende på trämaterialets struktur samt tafonomiska processer / The aim of this thesis was to investigate the nomadic people’s wood usage in northern Fennoscandia, as well as possible analytical methods of investigating wooden remains. This was achieved through relevant ethnographic, historical and archaeological studies and a review of analytical methods. Wooden material played a big role in the life of the nomadic people in the shape of food, firewood, storage, construction material for both temporary and permanent huts, and for hunting. The analytical methods presented are species identification, dendrochronology and 14C-method. Species identification enables the latter methods of which provides reliable dating of wood, depending on the structure and taphonomic processes.

abstract: The ancient religious practices and beliefs of the indigenous people of Northern Scandinavia, known as the Sámi, have been misrepresented and misinterpreted by well meaning ethnographers and researchers who view such practices and beliefs through an Descartes-Cartesian, objective-subjective lens. This thesis develops a more accurate, intersubjective paradigm that is used to illuminate more clearly the religious workings of the 17th-18th Century Sámi. Drawing upon the intersubjective theories presented by A. Irving Hallowell, Tim Ingold and Kenneth Morrison, ethnographic examples from the writings of early Lutheran missionaries and priests demonstrate that the Sámi lived in a world that can be best understood by the employ of the categories of Person (ontology), Power (epistemology) and Gift (axiology). / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Religious Studies 2014

Tore Andersson Hjulman: One with Nature: An Inquiry into the Renegotiation of Nature in the Conflicts between Nature Preservation and Sámi Rights during the Interwar Period.[Ett med naturen: En studie av hur naturen omförhandlades i mellankrigstidens konflikter mellan naturskydd och samiska rättigheter.] PhD dissertation in Swedish, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden 2017. In 1909 the Swedish national parks law was adopted with the assumption that theSámi people living in the areas to be preserved were, in principle, one with nature. Therefore the perception of their land as pristine was consolidated and they could be excepted from park regulations. About thirty years later the national park administration stated that the aim to keep the national park nature untouched would fail without a restriction of Sámi rights within the parks. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the distinction of nature from culture was renegotiated during the conflicts that preceded and followed this new stance. Tracing the impulses that fostered the reactions of the state administration back to their original contexts, complex interactions of differing interests are revealed. These contexts are examined in three case studies. The first case centers on nomad school superintendent Erik Bergström and his warning of the effects on the national parks from reindeer herders activities. The intersection of nature preservation and Sámi politics sheds light on their common outset in the use of the nature-culture dichotomy in approaching the Sámi. This contributes to explain the resistance by which the interest of change was met by those invested in the prevailing state policy towards the Sámi.The second case concerns a conflict of Sámi land use in the Abisko national park by the early 1930s. Several factors that possibly induced state officials to react on Sámi fishing and hunting in the national park are illuminated. These include different understanding of nature preservation, the moral ecology among the Sámi and antagonism between Sámi reindeer herders and inhabitants in the railway towns.The third case involves concerns raised in the process of establishing a new national park in the Muttos/Muddus area. A shift in focus from mountainous to forest landscapes among nature preservationists resulted in the inclusion of new stakeholders and fields of knowledge about land use and its effects. This seems to have spurred problematizing of both the ideal of pristine nature and of Sámi land use. A conflict was triggered by the in-migration of two reindeer herding families.In conclusion, it will be argued that it was a series of quite contextually different conflicts that interacted to undermine the institutionalized demarcation of nature. This simultaneously challenged Sámi rights in the national parks and took place in ideological opposition to the foundation of segregationist Sámi policy. / Nature Preservation and Indigenous Rights

Sustainable development is major post of global and national political agendas, and notions of sustainability permeate whole societies. Sweden is heavily influenced by sustainable development which can be exemplified by the ambitious goal of fossil-free energy and the current phase of rapid wind-power developments. In the name of sustainability many of these wind-power turbines and parks are now placed in the northern regions of the country, but whether it is sustainable is questionable. The northern region is a colonised territory, and the colonial relations between the indigenous Sámi people and the non-indigenous population remains an unresolved area. It is a cause of grievance and continuous conflict over land-use in the north – by of which wind-power developments are a part of. Therefore, this thesis examine the discursive construct of sustainability, in terms of content and underlying power relations, when applied to wind-power in four north Swedish newspapers between 2009 and 2016. The thesis use discourse and media-sociological theories in order to understand the role of media texts in the social construction of knowledge and how knowledge is shaped by social realities and shaping the social interpretation of reality. To study discourses a qualitative method based on critical discourse analysis is employed with the aim of investigating contextual meaning derived from the relationship between the text and the surrounding society. The empirical material is subject to an inductive analysis that has much in common with a grounded theory approach, but which involves some deductive analytical elements derived from theory and previous research. The findings of this thesis is that there is no singular discursive construct of sustainability, but rather a multiplicity of perspectives that together form a general representation of how sustainability is perceived when applied to wind-power. However, the discourses were dominated by non-indigenous actors with a national perspective - such as political parties, government actors and the wind-power industry. They portrayed sustainability and wind-power as environmentally benign economic growth leading to societal development, but in doing so experiences of marginalisation, and sustainability perspectives of peripheral groups, were made invisible. The study did find indications of change in the discourses from 2012 in the sense that the perspective of dominant actors was increasingly challenged by Sámi reindeer herders and rural populations, but the discursive and practical impact of this change remains uncertain.

The Sámi are a marginalized group in Sweden, there are a lot of preconceptions of them as the indigenous group of Sweden, like most States that has indigenous groups living within their boarders, clashes with the majority population will occur. The Swedish State has created management municipalities to help the Sámi gain control over some specified collective rights. The Sámi has, for example, collective rights assigned to them specifically because they are a people who internationally and nationally are recognized as the indigenous people of Sweden. This thesis sets out to investigate what rights the Sámi have to use their language and language education in connection to the management municipalities, and if Sweden, as a state that holds itself so high concerning the rights of indigenous peoples and a guardian of human rights for all, actually grant the Sámi the rights they are entitled to. I will do so by using a qualitative method and content analysis method which will draw on a liberal theory of collective rights. The research will show, that Sweden has indeed established the management municipalities to maintain rights assigned to the Sámi, however it does not provide all rights reserved and in some cases it actually violates the rights for the indigenous population.

The aim of this study is to explore if Western researchers with different academic backgrounds comply with requests articulated by Indigenous scholars in establishing relationships with Indigenous Sámi reindeerherders. I examine if the researchers’ motivations, attitude and their possible decolonizing approaches are in accordance with the requests of Indigenous scholars, and how these differ between social and natural scientists.The results illustrate that the researchers’ general mind set,as well as their decolonizing approaches-ifexisting-only partly meet the requests of Indigenous scholars. However,the herders are still interested in participating in research projects,even though the outcomes of these projects often do not seem to have direct positive effects on the reindeerherding community.The differences between social and natural scientists are not strongly pronounced and may possibly be caused by other factors than the academic background only

The purpose of the study was to examine social workers’ knowledge and experiences of Sámi people as clients in social services. Four qualitative interviews were conducted with social workers from scattered parts of Sápmi in Sweden. Ethnic sensitivity, anti-discriminatory and systems-theoretical perspectives are the concepts and theoretical perspectives that were used to analyze the interviews. The informants’ experience that the background to Sámi clients’ issues can differ from the general population, that the Sámi clients can carry a historical oppression and have identity difficulties. Gaining trust, being flexible and finding a balance in assessment-dialogue are challenges in the meeting with Sámi clients expressed by the informants. Even though the informants have strategies to meet clients based on their profession, it appears that Sámi culture is a widely-conducted concept and that there is a need of knowledge of Sámi people and their history to ease the work with Sámi clients. / Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att undersöka socialsekreterares kunskaper och erfarenheter av samer som klienter inom socialtjänsten. Fyra kvalitativa intervjuer genomfördes med socialsekreterare som arbetar i spridda delar av Sápmi i Sverige. Etnisk sensitivitet, antidiskriminering och systemteori är de begrepp och teoretiska perspektiv som har använts för att analysera intervjuernas empiri. Informanterna upplever att bakgrunden till samiska klienters problematik kan skilja sig åt från majoritetsbefolkningen, att de samiska klienterna kan bära på ett historiskt förtryck och ha identitetssvårigheter. Att få tillit, vara flexibel och att hitta en balans i utredningssamtal är utmaningar i mötet med samiska klienter som uttrycks av informanterna. Även om informanterna har strategier för att bemöta klienter utifrån sin profession, framgår det att samisk kultur är ett brett begrepp och att det finns ett behov av kunskap om samer och deras historia för att underlätta arbetet med samiska klienter.

This paper uses an environmental justice framework which is expanded through decolonial theory to analyse whether the mine permitting process used by the Swedish state does justice to local people’s opinions, perspectives and cultural histories. The specific case of Gállok is chosen as it is widely known in national and international circles and therefore has potential to make long-term impact. Research analysing the Swedish permitting process and its implications is severely lacking, thus this paper aims to act as an important stepping stone for future research into the subject. To answer the question, yarning was used to capture local perspectives in Jokkmokk. The conversations were later transcribed and coded using the expanded forms of justice as main coding topics. The results show that the inclusion of local communities in the consultation process is mostly symbolic and that they have no say or power over project details. The conversations also revealed that there is an overwhelming belief that the benefits to the local community are greatly exaggerated, while costs are understated. The analysis shows that the local communities, especially the Sámi sub-group, would have to bare the largest part of ecological and social damages, while overall benefits would be minimal. Finally, the paper argues that the Indigenous community members in northern Sweden cannot live according to their own ways, as land alterations from industrial developments force them to adapt, in order to be able to continue herding reindeer. This study fills a gap in research looking at the permitting process in the Swedish context as a potential source of oppression from a local community’s perspective. It emphasises the importance of understanding and addressing a larger system’s subsystems in order to cause an eventual transition towards more equitable functioning.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how the Sámi people are portrayed in the swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter’s two publications of climate change and the forest industry. The aim of this study is to identify whether power structures are reproduced or challenged. To do so, I applied critical discourse analysis as a method. The theoretical framework is composed of media theories, theories of institution and hegemony, and also by theories of stereotypingand “the other”. The results showed that one could crystallize a Sámi identity discourse order and a Sámi journalistic discourse order in the empirical material. On the one hand, the hegemony was reproduced by the way the Sámi people were described as a people with a lot of stereotypical perceptions, like being primitive, a victim and living close to nature. But on the other hand the power structures were challenged by the way the Sámi people were portrayed as active and fighting for their rights. The Sámi people were also given a position of power in comparison to the industry and the state, where the Sámi people are assigned a new epithet as a goodhearted climate hero. That identity description is constructed in relation to the industry and the state who are assigned the role of the oppressor. The conclusion that can be made out of this essay is that regardless of being described with positive stereotypical perceptions, the Sámi people’s subordinate position will always be reproduced. Furthermore, it will give birth to new stereotypes, like: The Sámi people = The climate hero of our time.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how different versions of sovereignty manifestthemselves in the central founding documents relating to the Sámi parliament in bothNorway and Sweden. This analysis of the different approaches to sovereignty could beused to give an explanation to the differences between the Sámi parliaments in Norwayand Sweden. The research questions of this thesis were: Within central foundingdocuments can one see different versions of sovereignty between Sweden and Norway?What differences can one observe between the countries in relation to ideas regardinginternal and external sovereignty? To answer these questions, different theories ofsovereignty were presented and evaluated. This thesis used content analysis with adeductive approach and the primary materials that were analysed were the founding legaldocuments and law propositions to the Sámi parliaments. The major finding of this thesispaper were that Norway and Sweden were observably different when it came to theirversions of sovereignty, in conclusion Sweden had a stricter adherence to internalsovereignty and Norway was exceedingly more orthodox and put more effort into theirexternal sovereignty.