The purpose ofthis study is to examine how Sweden and Denmark explain their colonial experience in textbooks. A comparison will be made between Sweden’s colonization of Sápmi and treatment of Samer, and Denmark’s colonization of Greenland and treatment of Innuits. To conduct this study a comparative method was utilized, as well as hermeneutic theory which was used to try to understand how the countries explain their colonial experience. The theory applied for this topic was selective traditions in a textbook perspective. The results show that Sweden tones down their colonial experience, and the textbooks differ a lot in (if) and (how) they mention Sweden’s experience. The colonization of Sápmi is toned down as well as the treatment of Samer in books written before the new curriculum. The textbooks written after the new curriculum present a less toned down version of Sweden ́s treatment of Samer. This change is due to changes in society, as Samer have gained a lot more rights in Swedish society, which can be seen in Swedish textbooks. Denmark does not hide their colonial experiences, and the books also have more consensus in their description of Denmark’s colonial experience. The books before the new curriculum describe Denmark’s colonial experience as proof of the greatness of Denmark’s past. The books after the new curriculum describe Denmark’s colonial experience in the perspective of slave trade. Slave trade was one of the 29 canon points that entered the Danish curriculum, which could have influenced the Danish textbooks. Denmark’s textbooks often describe Denmark as a “good” colonial country, and the textbooks do not describe the treatment of Innuits, which could be explained by that, Denmark’s treatment of Innuits does not match with Denmark’s national image.

The thesis studies the representation of prehistory as a part of the making and remaking of ethnic identities in Northern Sweden from the end of the 19th Century until today, thus dealing with archaeology and prehistory in relation to issues such as identity, memory and politics. The thesis takes as its point of departure the constitution of a Swedish national identity and memory in the late 19th Century and subsequent decades, followed by studies of, mainly later, representations of Sámi, Kvenish (“Kvänsk”) and North Bothnian (“Norrbottnisk”) collective identities. The study material consists of texts, primarily analyzed through discourse and narrative analysis. The thesis demonstrates how the constitution of a Swedish national identity in Northern Sweden constructed a dichotomy between an imagined civilized “Swedishness”, belonging to the future, and an imagined primitive Sámi Other, belonging to the past. It is argued that this discursive boundary work has not just situated some persons and their everyday life in a marginal position as a visible Sámi Other, but has also situated a substantial number of the inhabitants of Northern Sweden more or less in liminality and marginality in relation to the national identity structure. This has created a need for people to officially represent a more satisfactory collective identity, which includes a rewriting of the prehistory of the area. The last chapter relates the results to studies of similar cases in colonial and postcolonial contexts outside Europe. The essentialist view of identity and history present in several of the studied representations is also discussed. The thesis emphasizes the importance of a more nuanced view of relationships of ethnicity, domination and subordination, and the associated formation of collective memories, in Northern Sweden. Discourses of ethnicity and domination often function through simplifying dichotomies, but dichotomies alone cannot explain real conditions and consequences of these matters.

The Saami, a Nordic indigenous people scattered over four countries, has for centuries been regarded as parts of the national populations of the countries in which they live. During the 19th century saami demands for greater influence resulted en several changes, among them the founding of a Swedish Saami Council in 1993. The council became a popularly elected, representative institution with an agenda of its own, but also a public authority answerable to the government. The decision to attribute the council this twofold role was unusual and, from a certain point of view, even controversial: it makes it difficult to determine the location of the power to act in saami-related issues and the legitimacy to do so. This essay is about how the twofold role came into existence, what it leads to and how the seemingly contradictive duality is managed. It has an institutional approach with theories concerning institutions and etnicity as well as institutional change and handling of complicated and ambiguous demands. Among the theorists are Karppi, Micheletti, Jacobsson and Sahlin-Andersson. The previous two treat the possibilities and the shortcomings of the multicultural democracy. The later deals among other things with decision making and with changes in politics and public administration. The council was presented as the main solution of the problem that the Saami felt a lack of influence. However it was not welcomed by all main Saami figures. The founding of a council with a twofold role can be explained by governmental pressure at the time for a Saami Council working on governmental terms. This essay emphazises the efforts of the state to meet Saami demands without losing influence over a group long seen as a part of the national population. It is my opinion that the case of the Saami Council is an example of the difficulties in the multicultural democracy. It is problematic when a group is “given” an institution by the state, among other things because it may undermine the possibilities for the group to raise objections in future conflicts. An arena attracting attention to an indigenous people in the national politics in the way the Saami Council does is, however, of great value for the Saami. It is truly a political success resulting in a new conception of the Saami and sprung from international change and a growing urge to question the legitimacy of national borders, but also from the propagation of the concept of Sápmi. One of its consequences is critique of the twofold role and suggestions of other ways to solve the situation, not only from the Saami but also from others, e. g. a governmental report. While waiting for such changes, the members of the Saami Council have created shared frameworks of interpretation and chosen to handle the twofold role by putting stress on the popularly elected part. The structure of the Saami Council is studied through legal and other formal sources and through articles and litterature commenting the results of the structure. The results are contributions to the knowledge of the Saami political state in the Swedish society and to the knowledge of the Saami Council – a young institution harbouring many possibilities for future change. They are also ment to add to the understanding of the functioning of institutions with a built-in duality.

This thesis explores a period in Northern Sweden when contacts between Sami and non-Sami became more frequent as the colonisation progressed. The investigated period is 1722-1895 and eight parishes in northern Sweden are under study. Both the northern as well as the southern Sami area are represented. The main purpose of the thesis is thus to see whether the cultural meeting between Sami and non-Sami affected the way people chose to make significant decisions. In this study these cultural meetings are represented by the way people married.      To understand the consequences of cultural contacts, where individuals from different backgrounds meet, concepts developed within the field of acculturation theories are used. The marriage patterns among the inhabitants are viewed with regard to three key variables founded by Ruth Dixon, as these help to explain changes or continuations in the individuals’ marital behaviour.      The southern Sami area seamed to be rather unaffected by the colonisation process, at least according to the marriage pattern. The analysis revealed limited economic openings for marriage as well as cemented marriage traditions, and these prevailed throughout the investigated period. During the 18th and 19th centuries it was evident that the northern Sami areas were significantly affected by the in-migrated newcomers.  Even though the gender distribution in each parish seemed to matter, analysing the overall marriage pattern illuminated chiefly economic reasons for changes that occurred during the colonisation process. As the in-migration of non-Sami progressed, the age at first marriage increased particularly among Sami women. Furthermore, the results indicates that even though settled Sami probably interacted with non-Sami on a daily basis, and were integrated in their lifestyle, Sami settlers continuously estranged themselves from a complete assimilation and stuck to their Sami culture and traditions. Thus, language and cultural expressions seemed to have mattered when it came to marriage.       The thesis concludes that according to the marriage pattern, economic prerequisites for preferentially the Sami, changed dramatically through the colonisation process. Most affected by the changes were thus the Sami women, who experienced an unfavourable marriage market as the colonisation progressed. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the preferable form of coexistence was still the legal marriage in the area, and the marriage as an institution was of considerable importance, which is also evident since the marriage to some extent still seemed to be a family affair. The study also showed that Sami people in the southern Sami area interacted with non-Sami to a less degree than was the case in the north. However, in the north, the more ethnic complex parishes revealed an integrating population, rather than assimilating. The more ethnically homogenous parishes instead pointed towards an assimilated state among the newcomers.

The objective of this bachelor thesis is on Åsele and Lycksele church towns and early settlements in northern Sweden with the purpose of finding out if the archaeological source material shows the same or different results as the historical source material regarding when they were established, what sort of buildings and activities they had and if the proximity to the Sami people had any effect on the settlers. This is done by doing a comparative analysis between Åsele and Lycksele church towns through the excavated source material from archaeological surveys and their related reports.

Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att undersöka hur samiska identiteter beskrivs och görs i relation till majoritetssamhället i samiska raptexter. För att uppfylla syftet gjordes en tematisk textanalys av nio låttexter av tre olika samiska hiphopartister. Ett teoretiskt ramverk kring identitet som begrepp togs fram och användes i analysen. Begreppen identitetsskapande, mellanförskap, resiliens och kollektivt minne knyter an till det teoretiska ramverket och används för att nyansera analysen teoretiskt. I uppsatsen diskuteras hiphop som ett stärkande och resilierande forum för individuellt och kollektivt identitetsskapande. Vi menar att hiphop används som ett redskap av samiska rapartister för att styra ett identitetsnarrativ och hantera ett identitetsskapande som är omringat av inre och yttre konflikter. Vidare menar vi att samiskt identitetsskapande i texterna förhåller sig genomgående till det postkoloniala Sápmi, utanförskap, marginalisering och en ansträngd relation till majoritetssamhället och staten Sverige. Avslutningsvis kan vi konstatera att samiskt identitetsskapande tar sig uttryck på flera olika sätt i raptexterna och att texterna i sig är en del av ett identitetsskapande. I förlängningen så anser vi att uppsatsen bidrar till en ökad förståelse av samiskhet, samiskt identitetsskapande och samers sociala villkor i Sverige.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to critically examine the relationship between the Swedish state and the indigenous Sámi people, with special attention to land-use conflicts. Throughout history, the Swedish state has subjected the Sámi people to severe violations of their human and indigenous rights, such as forced relocation and land acquisition. Because of the historical context, and because it has been used in previous research on the Swedish-Sámi situation, the thesis uses settler colonial theory. The method is Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA) on communicative events from the government, state-owned forest enterprises and Sámi actors. Three research questions guided the analysis: 1) How does the proposed law of consultations describe the possibility for Sámi influence? 2) Are the state owned forestry enterprises reproducing settler colonial power structures in Sápmi? 3) How do Sámi actors describe the state’s forest politics? The conclusions were that it is uncertain if the proposed law of consultations satisfies requirements of free and prior informed consent (FPIC) as they are formulated in international law. Furthermore, the state-owned forestry enterprise Sveaskog reproduces settler colonial structures with some of their statements, for example by relating to state ownership of land that was stolen from Sámi people as unproblematic. Lastly, Sámi actors mostly portray the state’s forest politics in a negative light, emphasizing how the space for reindeer husbandry is shrinking due to irresponsible forestry methods.

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 aim of this thesis is to describe surname patterns and changes of surname among the Sami of Sweden. It presents the results of three studies. The first is a survey of the present-day stock of surnames (family names) among the Sami community, based on the 2005 electoral register for the Swedish Sami Parliament. It investigates the proportions of names deriving from different languages, and the commonest names in each group. The same study was carried out for different areas, showing that the northernmost parts of Sweden have a Sami name stock significantly different from that of the majority population. Further south, the stock of names is less marked, but no area is without Sami elements. The second study, based on archival material, concerns changes of name by Swedish Sami to newly formed surnames, over the period 1920–2004. It examines not only the names adopted, but also the ones replaced; how the name stock has been affected by different patterns of name change; and, as far as possible, who the name changers were. The study shows that, for a long time, names derived from Sami and Finnish were replaced with names formed from Swedish. This may be largely because of the stigma once attached to Sami ethnicity. More recently, Sami-language names seem to have been retained to a greater extent, possibly owing to the improved status of the culture. The third study looks at name changes in favour of names marked as Sami in character. The data consist in part of archive materials, but above all of interviews with three Sami informants who have themselves adopted Sami-language surnames. This study presents the informants’ thoughts on ethnicity and changes of name. In addition to the author’s own studies, the thesis includes a review of earlier research on Sami surnames, hereditary and non-hereditary, and a list of individual surnames with literature references regarding their origins and meanings. In the thesis, name changes are studied as a single, overall process, with an emphasis on the role of names in society, in particular as ethnic markers.

The Sami in Sweden have lived on and managed their lands since time immemorial. The strong connection to the environment and nature has given them centuries of knowledge that is still applicable to this day. With the help of their ancestral knowledge the Sami have preserved their Indigenous land. With constant work towards sustainability and extractive projects of natural resources for renewable energy that takes place in Sápmi, the question is raised of who is included in the transition towards sustainable development and who the transition is for. The purpose of this study is to investigate and get a deeper understanding of Sami perspectives on sustainability and the connection to their rights. Applied methodology for this qualitative study is semi-structured interviews with nine Sami, followed by a thematic analysis of the collected empirical data. This was done to understand and analyse perceptions of sustainable development and how it relates to Sami inclusion and Sami rights, using frameworks of colonial governmentality and green colonialism. The findings suggest that a differentiation can be made concerning how the Sami perceive actions for sustainable development and the concept of sustainable development. Further, the Sami view their inclusion in policy-making and implementation in regards to questions of sustainable development in Sweden as being somewhat low or not applied at all. In relation to environmental sustainability this study shows that the implementation of Sami rights varies depending on the context, but that it is generally experienced as insufficient, and that rights are often applied to the economic units of the samebys, and not all Sami, creating a division within the Sami community. The results also show a perception of lack of political will and a neglectance to include and implement Sami rights, as state interests are prioritised. The societal and institutional conditions for the Sami to claim their rights and require inclusion within sustainable development prove that the theories of colonial governmentality and green colonialism are applicable to the current situation in Sápmi.