<p>Previous research often includes juridical, political, economical and historical aspects of the Sami population. The research about the Sami women are limited therefore is was important to investigate the living conditions of the Sami women. The purpose with the study was to investigate the living conditions of the Sami women from a culture- and reindeer-herding view in relation to social gender and the majority society. Four individual interviews were performed with women who worked with reindeer-herding in the Sapmi area in north of Sweden. The interview guide was semi-structured and the data were analysed with the phenomenological method Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, which has a focus on subjective experiences. The results revealed that participants try to create a norm of practising reindeer-herding, in spite of the male norm and less physical strength. They experience that job sharing between genders has changed over time. The majority society was experienced as threatening due to diffused intentions for reindeerherding.</p> / <p>Mycket litteratur behandlar samerna ur juridiskt, politiskt, ekonomiskt och historiskt perspektiv. Forskningen om samiska kvinnor är begränsad och därför är det angeläget att undersöka samiska kvinnors levnadsvillkor. Syftet med denna studie var att studera samiska kvinnors levnadsvillkor i rennäringen i förhållande till socialt kön och majoritetssamhället. Fyra kvinnor som arbetar helt eller delvis med renskötsel intervjuades. Intervjuerna har varit semi-strukturerade och har utförts i norra Sápmi. Data analyserades med den fenomenologiska metoden Interpretative phenomenological analysis, som fokuserar på människors upplevelser av fenomen. Tvärtemot normen så visar resultatet att kvinnorna själva kan göra det möjligt att klara av att anta renskötarrollen, trots fysiska hinder, maskulinisering och strukturer. Renskötseln är uppbyggd som en manlig struktur och arbetsdelning har omvandlats under olika tider. Majoritetssamhället upplevdes som ett hot eftersom informanterna kände sig osäkra på dess avsikter med näringen.</p>

Previous research often includes juridical, political, economical and historical aspects of the Sami population. The research about the Sami women are limited therefore is was important to investigate the living conditions of the Sami women. The purpose with the study was to investigate the living conditions of the Sami women from a culture- and reindeer-herding view in relation to social gender and the majority society. Four individual interviews were performed with women who worked with reindeer-herding in the Sapmi area in north of Sweden. The interview guide was semi-structured and the data were analysed with the phenomenological method Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, which has a focus on subjective experiences. The results revealed that participants try to create a norm of practising reindeer-herding, in spite of the male norm and less physical strength. They experience that job sharing between genders has changed over time. The majority society was experienced as threatening due to diffused intentions for reindeerherding. / Mycket litteratur behandlar samerna ur juridiskt, politiskt, ekonomiskt och historiskt perspektiv. Forskningen om samiska kvinnor är begränsad och därför är det angeläget att undersöka samiska kvinnors levnadsvillkor. Syftet med denna studie var att studera samiska kvinnors levnadsvillkor i rennäringen i förhållande till socialt kön och majoritetssamhället. Fyra kvinnor som arbetar helt eller delvis med renskötsel intervjuades. Intervjuerna har varit semi-strukturerade och har utförts i norra Sápmi. Data analyserades med den fenomenologiska metoden Interpretative phenomenological analysis, som fokuserar på människors upplevelser av fenomen. Tvärtemot normen så visar resultatet att kvinnorna själva kan göra det möjligt att klara av att anta renskötarrollen, trots fysiska hinder, maskulinisering och strukturer. Renskötseln är uppbyggd som en manlig struktur och arbetsdelning har omvandlats under olika tider. Majoritetssamhället upplevdes som ett hot eftersom informanterna kände sig osäkra på dess avsikter med näringen.

By the term “Cultural Amnesia” I refer to a diagnosis of a condition that has been caused by external damage or trauma. This may result in a society forced to forget about their roots, culture and connection to the landscape, once been embraced by a community as a whole but now been forgotten and replaced by different ideals that are displaced from context.  It is an assumption that something is missing or is about to be forgotten, that would have disastrous consequences. The causes of the amnesia need to be diagnosed and identified and their possible effects imagined. The term “Culture” here can refers simply to the way how have been done and developed in a specific context from the beginning of times. Cultural amnesia, then, would be the widespread ignorance of and indifference to what used to be important but has now fallen into forced displacement, resulting in a possible “dystopian future”.  The aim of the research is to analyse the recent developments in Norrland and the Sápmi areas that are largely affected by capitalist space production. It highlights also the story of displacement and injustice the Sámi have suffered. There has been an exploitation of the Sámi rights by the government and evidence of the Swedish state land theft from the Sámi. The real repression began with the modernization of society, where the causes lay in factors like the need for forest, agricultural efficiency and new definitions of land ownership. Today the indigenous people find themselves fighting a battle against the state and multinational mining companies, while their land, cultural heritage and their way of life is at stake.  Can we imagine a cure, a plan of care or an antidote to Cultural Amnesia?

A study of what it is like to belong to double minorities at the same time, how individuals who deviate both with their sexuality but also with their ethnicity. What setbacks do individuals with dual minority identities face and how do individuals succeed in creating relationships and networks in a society that marginalizes them.

The exploitation of land in Northern Sweden has caused a significant depletion of grazing grounds for semi-domesticated reindeer. This is a threat to the indigenous Sami reindeer herders of Sweden, who rely on the grazing ground in order to sustainably feed their herds. In the last decade, a significant amount of grazing land has been lost due to the construction of wind power parks (WPP) in important grazing regions. This thesis examines the discourse surrounding a WPP built in Härjedalen for IKEA. The WPP was built on Glötesvålen, a unique highland used for grazing by Mittådalen, a local herding community. Through a dissection of electronic sources and semi-structured interviews, the author conducts a discourse analysis to identify the most prevalent narratives surrounding the construction of IKEA’s WPP on Glötesvålen. An inductive approach is used to identify underlying ideologies present in the discourse through a relevant theoretical framework. The results show a pervasive enthusiasm for the WPP as a pivot towards renewable energy which mirrors the ideology of ecological modernization. The results also find a critical narrative which lifts the uneven power dynamic experienced by reindeer herders. This narrative is understood through the lens of Spivak’s (2010) “Can the Subaltern Speak?”. An additional discourse found is the symbolic issue between industrial ecological transitioning and the right to reindeer husbandry as a cultural heritage. / Exploateringen av mark i norra Sverige har orsakat en betydande förlust av betesmarker för renskötare. Detta hotar den svensk-samiska rennäringen, som förlitar sig på betesmarken för att hållbart mata sina hjordar. Under det senaste decenniet har en betydande mängd betesmark gått förlorad på grund av den ökande mängden vindkraftsparker (WPP) på, eller intillrenbetesmarker. Denna avhandling undersöker diskursen kring en WPP byggd i Härjedalen för IKEA. WPP byggdes på Glötesvålen, ett låg-fjäll som tidigare haft strategiskt viktiga betesmarker för samebyn Mittådalen. Genom en dissektion av elektroniska källor och halvstrukturerade intervjuer genomför författaren en diskursanalys för att identifiera de vanligaste narrativen om IKEAs vindkraftpark på Glötesvålen. En induktiv metod används för att identifiera underliggande ideologier som finns i diskursen genom ett relevant teoretisk ramverk. Resultaten visar en genomgripande entusiasm för vindkraft som ett steg mot förnybar energi. Detta narrativ speglar ideologin för ekologisk modernisering. Resultaten hittar också ett kritisk narrativ som lyfter den ojämna maktdynamiken som renskötarna upplever. Detta förstås genom Spivaks (2010) "Kan den underordnade tala?". Ytterligare en diskurs som upptäcks är symbolfrågan mellan industriell ekologisk omställning och bevarandet av renskötseln som kulturarv.

From “disguised and concealed” (Parks and Starosielski 2015) in nature to more recent, select attempts at “visible, accessible, environmentally friendly” (Holt and Vonderau 2015), data centers are the backbone of the digital infrastructure. Studies of data centers continuously help develop media and communications studies in understanding the role of media infrastructure, representations of imaginaries of the cloud; social, political and economic realities embedded in data, and issues of power, agency and resistance against the backdrop of increased global concerns for the environment and greening practices, built into the discourse of tech companies. This research provides an insight into data centers in S.pmi, in the Arctic and near-Arctic regions in Sweden, from the perspective of Indigenous S.mi communities. Data centers are examined here through their materialities and representations and as industrial sites of politics, power and promise through lived realities of the S.mi people in Sweden. As a result, data centers emerge not only as entities with built-in, inherent dependence on materialities and representations of land, water and air but also as contrapuntal nodes – assemblages perpetually at odds with their built-in power through time: their narratives –neutral connectedness and natural sustainability – at odds with their material infrastructure: detaching and uprooting from land.

The oppression that indigenous people experienced in many decades slowly began to loosen after the second world war, this is partly visible in the growing number of international convention protecting indigenous people. The racism and discrimination towards the indigenous people were exchanged with an aim to mediate a respectful and informative view of the history about the indigenous people to the majority. The Sami people’s history, the indigenous people of Norway, Sweden, Russia and Finland, is a European example of colonial oppression inside the boundaries of Europe. This essay aim to analyze how the Samis are represented in the Swedish curriculum from 1994 and 2011 and the Norwegian curriculum from 1997 and 2015. The analyze is concentrated to the subjects Religious Education and History. The theory of the analyze is based on postcolonial theory presented by Ania Loomba which make it possible to critically examine the curriculums.