Sámi Histories of Colonization with Christian Hans Pedersen

he Sámi (Northern Sámi: Sápmelaččat or Sámit) are the only recognized Indigenous people in Europe. Their lands, Sápmi, are claimed and divided by the Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Russian nation-states. Despite the central roles they’ve played in the political, economic, and cultural histories of Northern Europe, the Sámi are commonly depicted as ahistorical wildlings whose lands are an unused frontier ripe for development.

These lectures illuminate how untrue those depictions are:

• Sámi History 101 (session 1)—Examine the fundamentals of Sámi history and culture, surveying oral histories, subsistence practices, societal organization, and icons of Sámi culture.
• Sámi History 102 (session 2)—Expand on the topics in session one by inspecting how historical relations and archaeological, linguistic, and genetic studies contribute to studying Sámi history.
• Sámi Histories of Colonization (session 3)—Dive into how encroachment, taxation, and borders, among others, constructed and constructed Fennoscandic colonialisms, creating a timeline of how colonization has looked and still looks in Sápmi.
• Sápmi Today (session 4)—Trace those legacies to the present to contextualize Sámi survivance, survival by resistance, by looking at political organizing, rights, and contemporary forms of colonization in Sápmi.

After the first session, a recommended reading and media list will be mailed out to all participants. These live lectures will be on Wednesday evenings over Zoom. Attendance requires a reliable internet connection and a device with audio and video functionality. Each lecture has a separate registration.