For the past twenty years, there have been comparatively few popular titles published in English about the Sámi people. Even fewer have mentioned contemporary political movements in Sápmi and the relationship between Sápmi and the Nordic countries and Russia. This, in spite of the fact that activism in many areas of Sámi society has been steadily on the rise, in part fueled by a younger generation and social media. While there’s a fair amount these days to be found online in English on Sámi art, duodji (handicraft), joik, and political resistance, that hasn’t fully been reflected in book publishing until the last few years.
One of the new crop of titles is Liberating Sápmi:Indigenous Resistance in Europe’s Far North, by Gabriel Kuhn, out in 2020 from PM Press, an independent radical press in Oakland, California.
Liberating Sápmi is an up-to-date book of interviews with twelve engaging and thoughtful activists from Sápmi, proceeded by an introductory political history of Sápmi by Gabriel Kuhn. Kuhn is Austrian by birth; he has lived in Sweden since 2007. He says in his preface that he was motivated to work on this book by his “frustration at the lack of interest in the Sámi among the majority populations of the Nordic countries.” (I’ve often found this as well).
Kuhn has clearly spent time grounding himself in Sámi history, past and present, and his introduction covers many of the core events of the past four centuries of colonization in Sápmi, from the closing of the borders and forced removals of Sámi herding siidas, to the Kautokeino Uprising of the 19th century, to protests over the last fifty years against mining, logging, wind farms, and damming and damage to rivers and fjords. He gives background as well on how the Nordic states both control and work with their Sámi citizens, and how the Sámi have also forged important connections with Indigenous people all over the world. For anyone hoping to get a succinct perspective on the complex realities that Sámi people face within the Nordic countries (particularly Sweden and Norway), this is a outstanding resource. Kuhn’s leftist politics are visible, but he’s very clear that he is reporting, not prescribing, and that as a sympathetic outsider, his job is to reflect and amplify the varied voices of a variety of Sámi artists, activists, academics, and politicians.
In order to do so, in 2019 he interviewed twelve well-known figures in Sápmi, beginning with the artist/poet/arts organizer Synnøve Persson (b.1950). Her personal story as a young Sámi woman who came from Finnmark to attend the university in Oslo, only to return and help found an artists’ collective in Máze, is intertwined with the Alta River struggle of 1979-1982, when many hundreds of people took action to try to stop the river from being dammed and to protest and hunger strike in front of Norway’s parliament building in Oslo. Such intertwined stories play a part in many of the interviews, including the last one, with well-known actor, rapper, and activist, Maxida Märak (b. 1988), an outspoken critic of the proposed UK mining operation outside Jokkmokk (Jåhkåmåhkke) in Gállok. Other interviewees include the filmmaker Suvi West; the teacher and translator Harald Gaski; the salmon fisherman Aslak Holmberg from the Finnish side of the Tana River; the world famous singer Mari Boine; the queer politician and reindeer herder Stefan Mikaelsson; and the avant-garde artist Anders Sunna. In spite of different backgrounds, professions, and generations, all share a vision of what Sápmi means and ways they want to contribute to visibility, acknowledgement, and positive futures.
Unsurprisingly, many of those that Kuhn interviews speak of some of the same events and subjects from different perspectives, so in addition to learning more about the interviewees themselves, we see the tapestry of Sámi history over the past fifty years. Through their eyes we understand the range of obstacles that the Sámi face and have often faced, individually and collectively. Too often when journalists and travel writers mention the Sámi in the media, they speak of discrimination as something that happened in the long ago. In fact, as Kuhn reminds us and many the interviewees attest, racism, both structural and personally aggressive, is sadly alive and well in the Nordic countries.
If I have one criticism of Kuhn’s book, it would be that his introduction is not as nuanced as the stories told by the remarkable people he interviews, who have not only lived through Sámi history in their own lives, but who are familiar with many other stories from parents and elders. Kuhn focuses in his political history of the Sámi on oppression and resistance; he places special emphasis on periods of conflict. In his summary, not much happened politically in Sápmi from the stirrings of pan-Sáminess in the first two decades of the twentieth century to the full-blown fight for justice that came to characterize Sámi culture in the 1970s. But in fact, through the middle of the century, Sámi people were continuing as culture bearers, establishing schools that taught the Sámi languages and the art of duodji (handicraft), and forming organizations that were the precursors to state-funded institutions today. In Sweden, teachers like Karin Stenberg and Gustav Park were crucial figures in conserving and promoting Sámi culture, while at the University of Uppsala, Sámi professor Israel Ruong published articles and books and encouraged a new generation to study Sámi linguistics and history. The same happened in Norway and Finland. The ground for many of the demands made in the 1970s was prepared by hundreds of active Sámi artisans, teachers, and politicians in mid-century Scandinavia.
Nevertheless, both Kuhn’s introduction and particularly the interviews, make this an excellent primer on past and present Sámi activism. Liberating Sápmi stands out in acknowledging Sámi agency and introducing concepts of indigenous community, heritage, and sovereignty in the European North, as well as raising questions about the pervasive view of the Nordic countries as somehow perfect societies.
I can’t think of a better introductory book I’d want to place in the hands of someone who wants to know more about Sápmi and doesn’t know where to start.
