Knowing from the Indigenous North ― S嫥i Approaches to History, Politics and Belonging

Discourse around the North has become increasingly focused on environmental and societal changes, as global scientific, political and economic interests assert increasing influence on the landscape. Issues including environmental change, human adaptation, and post-colonial governance and strategies have all played a part in the changing paradigm that is our cultural understanding of ‘the North’. In research, however, the North has so far been approached mainly as a region, the environment, inhabitants and cultures of which are seen as natural variables.

In a strong departure from conventional discussions of the North, the editors of this volume have drawn together a collection of chapters that present the North as a unique way of knowing, with its own needs, practices, concepts and worldviews. This Northern, epistemic gaze positions the North’s own conceptions of politics, human agency, history, and social relations as pivotal to its understanding, relationships and interaction with the world. The chapters are empirically focused around particular questions of Finnish Sámi history, politics and being, and include contributions from internationally known scholars of the North (Tim Ingold and Thomas Hylland Eriksen), citizenship, gender and belonging (Nira Yuval-Davis), and nationalism (Michael Skey).

Providing a key indigenous perspective on current Artic issues of global relevance, the book aims to offer alternative ways of theorizing questions of being and belonging. Essential reading for scholars of the Arctic, Sámi culture, Indigenous Studies, Post-colonial Studies and Indigenous Methodology.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen is a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, Norway, as well as the 2015–2016 president of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. His current research is motivated by a triple concern: to understand the present world, to understand what it means to be human, and to help bring about social and environmental change.

Sanna Valkonen is a Sami scholar and associate professor of Sami studies at the University of Lapland, Finland. Her research interest are in the areas of indigenous politics, ethnicity, Sami society and gender.

Jarno Valkonen is a Sami scholar and professor of sociology at the University of Lapland, Finland. His research interest are in the areas of environmental politics, human-nature relations, ethnicity and identity politics, waste, tourism and work.

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