The Societal Dimensions of Sámi Research (SoDi-Sámi) is a research group, which connects scholars from the Arctic University Museum of Norway, University of Helsinki, Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, Giellagas Institute at the University of Oulu, and Museum of Cultural History (UiO). The key aim of the group is to advance research on the evolving relationships between scholarly productions on the Sámi and Nordic societies. The central premise underlying this research group is that in order to understand these relationships, it is important to study the complex societal conditions, which have framed the production of academic knowledge in different periods. The research group is multidisciplinary and highly comparative in nature, and the material examined will cover research-society relationships in the High North from the ‘Lappologist’ era to the present. The project is financed by the Research Council of Norway, and the Arctic University Museum of Norway are the project owner. Photo: Carl-Johan Utsi


Cathrine Baglo is a former researcher at the Arctic University Museum of Norway. She holds a PhD on the live ethnographic displays of Sámi (2011). Other fields of study include Sámi cultural history, ethnographic photography and the history of ethnographic collecting. Baglo is currently an investigator for the Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Cathrine’s articles in the project can be read here and here. The latter she wrote with Hanne Hammer Stien (the Arctic University of Norway). Photo: Mari Karlstad.

The Turf Hut Model 


Ivar Bjørklund is a professor in cultural science at the Arctic University Museum of Norway. His research fields are ethno-history in Northern areas and he has done extensive research regarding Sámi reindeer pastoralism. His contribution to the SoDi-Sámi project is to analyze the ways governmental policy has shaped scientific research regarding the Sámi and how this research in turn had consequences for the Sámi political and economic situation. Locus will be Sámi reindeer herding through the last 150 years. Photo: David Jensen.

The Poster


Coppélie Cocq is professor of European Ethnology at the University of Helsinki, Finland, specialized in Sámi Studies. Her research interests lie in the fields of folkloristics, ethnology and digital humanities, with specific focus on digital practices, place-making and revitalization in Indigenous contexts. Among her previous work is the recent Sámi Media and Indigenous Agency in the Arctic North, University of Washington Press, 2019. 

The Social Media


Trude Fonneland is professor in cultural science at the Arctic University Museum of Norway. Her research interests revolve around contemporary religion, tourism, popular culture, and museology. She is the author of Contemporary Shamanisms in Norway: Religion, Entrepreneurship and Politics (Oxford University Press 2017). In SoDi-Sámi, Fonneland contributes with analysis of the knowledge and representation of the Sámi. A particular focus is devoted to the work of Just Qvigstad (1853-1957) and Ørnulv Vorren (1916-2007), both former researchers at the Arctic University Museum of Norway. Read Trude’s article in the project. Photo: Gaute E. Lien.


Monica Grini is senior lecturer in media and documentation studies at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She holds a PhD in art history. Her research interests revolve around historiography, museology and representation, especially articulations and receptions of Sámi art. Read Monica’s article in the project.

The Installation


Eeva-Kristiina Harlin is a PhD-reseacher at the University of Oulu. Her research deals with the change of paradigm in the repatriation politics of Sámi tangible heritage and especially the shift from repatriation to rematriation of cultural heritage in Sámi contexts. In rematriation the Sámi society works with cultural objects first by gaining knowledge about the object, its use, history and narratives, but also re-making and therefore re-socialising the objects in the society. Her background is in archaeology, osteoarchaeology and Sámi studies. She has published several articles related to repatriation politics and she just lately published a book together with Sámi visual artist Outi Pieski Ládjogahpir – Máttaráhkuid gábagahpir The Ládjogahpir – The Foremothers` Hat of Pride where they study the concept of rematriation. In Sodi-Sámi, Harlin, together with Professor Veli-Pekka Lehtola, has studied the history and the current and future meaning of the collections gathered to the National Museum of Finland by Toivo Immanuel Itkonen, the famous Finnish ethnologist. Read their article in the project.

Laura Junka-Aikio is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the Arctic University Museum of Norway. Her research interests include politics of knowledge, contemporary colonialism, indigenous politics and rights and the politics of identity. Junka-Aikio is the author of Late Modern Palestine: The Subject and Representation of the Second Intifada (2015, Routledge). Her article “Can the Sámi Speak Now: Deconstructive Research Ethos and the Debate on Who is a Sámi in Finland” in Cultural Studies 30:2/2016 was the 2017 winner of Cultural Studies and Stuart Hall Association Award for Early Career Researchers. In SoDi-Sámi she has co-edited book with Dr. Jukka Nyyssönen and Prof. Veli-Pekka Lehtola, Sámi Research in Transition: Politics, Knowledge and Social Change (2021, Routledge). She also has contributed in the project with this article.


 

The Bookshelf


Terttu Kortelainen, PhD, is university lecturer and docent of Information Studies at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her research interests focus on attention economy, informetric research and information literacy. Her publications consist of study books and articles of attention economy, informetrics, social media, literacies and evaluation of public libraries. She is member of the publication board of the Finnish Information Studies publication series. Kortelainen and Länsman co-writes the Digital Footprints.

Anni-Siiri Länsman, PhD in Sociology, is a university lecture and the director of the Giellagas Institute for Sámi studies at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her research interest is Sámi culture. Her dissertation is about the encounter between Finnish tourists, the Sámi, and the related dynamics within the context of tourism. She has also studied the research of Sámi studies in the Nordic countries and the Sámi cultural environment. She has worked actively in the various networks of Sámi research and she has been a Member of the Programme Board of the Programme for Sámi Research II in The Research Council of Norway, 2007-2017.

The Digital Footprints


Veli-Pekka Lehtola is professor of Sámi Culture in the Giellagas Institute at the University of Oulu, Finland. Lehtola is a (North) Sámi from Aanaar or Inari in Northern Finland. As a researcher, Lehtola is specialised in the history of the Sámi and Lapland, in modern Sámi art, as well as in the development of the Sámi representations. In English, he has published several articles and books The Sámi People – Traditions in Transition in 2004 (University Press of Alaska) and Surviving the Upheaval of Arctic War in 2019 (Puntsi Publisher). Read Veli-Pekka’s article in the project, which he co-wrote with Eeva-Kristiina Harlin.

The Statue


Silje Opdahl Mathisen is a collection manager at the Museums of Cultural History, University of Oslo. She holds a PhD on contemporary exhibitions of Sámi culture and history (2014). Her research interests revolve around museology in general and the history of archaeological end ethnographical collections and exhibitions. Read Silje’s article in the project. 

The Plaster Cast


Jukka Nyyssönen is a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. He has worked in several positions at the Arctic University of Norway and Universities of Jyväskylä and Turku. His research interests include identity politics, Sámi policies, historiography, Sámi research, animal agency as well as reindeer herding management and climate change. Nyyssönen contributes to the project with analysis of the early paradigmatic shift in Lappology. Read the Nordic Museology preface, which Jukka wrote together with Cathrine Baglo and Rossella Ragazzi. As a side product to the project, he wrote a thematically related article. Photo: Konstanse Karlsen.


Rossella Ragazzi, PhD, is associate professor at The Arctic University Museum of Norway. She is a visual and museum anthropologist and an independent filmmaker. The main topics of her research: Childhood and Education, Mobility and Migration, Transcultural Cinema, Indigenous/Sámi museums, Critical Heritage. She is the author of several prize-winners documentaries; among others: La Mémoire Dure (2000), At Home in the World (2003), Firekeepers (2007) as well as a number of academic publications, among others the monograph: The Transcultural Experience of Migrant Children entering Europe in the years 2000, Peter Lang, 2009, and the forthcoming anthology co-edited with Peter. I. Crawford: Perceiving Children: media anthropology of childhood and children’s museums Århus, Intervention Press, 2020. Read Rossella’s article in the project which she wrote with Giacomo Nerici (University of Milano Bicocca). Photo: Hege I. Hanssen.


Eva Silvén is an independent scholar, holds a PhD in ethnology from Stockholm University, and is former curator and researcher at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. Main research interests are contemporary collecting, museology, materiality, indigenous and minority issues. Latest article is “Sociomaterial intertwinements in Sami research. The Nordic Museum in Stockholm and the legacy of Ernst Manker,” Nordisk Museologi 3/2019, which is also Eva’s article in the project. Next book will be Friction. Ernst Manker, the Nordic Museum and the Construction of Sami Cultural Heritage (in Swedish). Photo: Eva Silvén.

The Camera


Eli-Anita Øivand Schøning is a PhD student at the Arctic University Museum of Norway. Her research interests are Sámi culture and history, in addition to museology. In SoDi-Sámi, Schøning contributes with analysis of knowledge production and the transfer of knowledge in Sámi cultural centers and museums. Árran Lulesámi Center and Várdobáiki Sámi Center are cooperating partners in her PhD project. Schøning is the technical developer of this online exhibition.


Tiina Äikäs is a researcher in archaeology, University of Oulu Finland and holds a title of docent in archaeology at the University of Helsinki. Her thesis (2011) dealt with the ritual landscapes of Sámi sacred places while her post-doctoral research has concentrated on the site biographies and contemporary use of Sámi offering places (sieiddit). Her research interest include archaeology of religion, heritage studies, and industrial heritage. Her most recent book co-edited with Anna-Kaisa Salmi was The Sound of Silence: Indigenous Perspectives on the Historical Archaeology of Colonialism (2019, Berghahn Books). Read Tiina’s article in the project. Photo: Mikko Törmänen.

The Sieidi