‘For Their Own Good’: Examining ‘Gentle’ Colonialism and Finnish Exceptionalism Within Narratives of Finland’s Indigenous Residential Schools

ABSTRACT

Scholarship of Indigenous residential school systems is complex, fraught with cultural trauma, and receiving renewed public attention due to numerous global discoveries of mass child graves upon identified boarding school sites. Though Indigenous residential schools operated in several countries, Finland’s scholarly treatment of Sámi students in residential school systems in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is uniquely situated within the history of Indigenous education. The Sámi population can be found in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia, with several of these countries having made official statements regarding treatment of Sámi within government-run schools. However, some historians appear to reject ideas that portray Finland as coloniser or oppressor to the Sámi people through this educational cultural hegemony. Extant scholarship presents conflicting accounts of Sámi experiences within Finnish boarding schools. Using past publications as primary sources, this article utilizes narrative inquiry as a methodology to analyse scholarly studies of Indigenous residential school experiences in Finland, explores concepts and implications of Finnish racial exceptionalism and white innocence and finally, predicts future historiographical trends in a field increasingly moving towards the decolonization of Indigenous cultural memory.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous education
• Sámi studies
• Finnish exceptionalism

Introduction

‘Different’ is a word often found within academic discussions examining Finland’s relationship with its Indigenous community, particularly those drawing comparisons between Finnish Sámi experiences within residential schools and Indigenous school experiences in other countries. The term ‘exceptionalism’ describes an insistence that certain sets of social structures, rules or behaviours are acceptable for one individual, group or country, while different sets should be utilized for the rest of the world.¹ This article explores concepts of Finnish exceptionalism: ‘the differentiation of Finland and Finnish people from other nations and the moral superiority included in this discourse,’² and identifies it within select narratives discussing Finnish residential schools and experiences of Sámi students with school policies. Veli-Pekka Lehtola theorized that notions of historic Finnish-Sámi relationships differing from those of Scandinavians ‘seemed to be valid,’ albeit with several significant complexities,³ Annbritt Palo et al. described how easily overlooked European colonial practices were in reference to Sámi within Finnish schools,⁴ and Mélodie Viallon argued that Finland’s colonial past was greatly understudied because of general assumptions ‘that Nordic and Scandinavian participation in colonial politics was benign’ in comparison to ‘imperialistic’ practices elsewhere.⁵ Variations of these arguments echo within a multitude of academic narratives, with a resounding common denominator that ‘Finland was different’ in its treatment of Indigenous students within residential school systems. This idea that Finland is an exception – that it has not participated in or benefitted from colonial government practices like other countries have – will be further discussed in the following sections.

This article first gives a brief overview of residential school history in Finland. This is followed by a chronological narrative analysis exploring the treatment of Finland’s residential schools within a limited selection of the larger academic historiography and accompanying scholarship of the subject. This study identifies possibilities of Finnish exceptionalism and ‘white innocence’ within relevant scholarship.⁶ Additionally considered are concepts of ‘gentle’ settler colonialism. Defined by Lehtola as the belief that ‘colonial politics’ between Finns and Sámi were more ‘benign and collaboration-based’ than those of America, Asia and Africa, ‘gentle’ colonialism differs from colonial practices which were centred around practices of pure subjugation and extortion.⁷ The article concludes with an exploration of how ‘gentle’ colonialism and concepts of ‘white innocence’ have ultimately affected mainstream scholarship of Finnish residential schools and identifies present historiographical trends in Finland. Predictions of future trends, accompanied by suggestions of how and why further decolonization of the subject is valuable will be discussed.

Methodology

Utilizing narrative inquiry as a methodological approach is suitable for this study, as it focuses upon the temporality of narratives, relationships between researcher and subject of study and construction of research author and subject through use of language.⁸ Awareness of narratives’ temporal nature is central to this study, as chronological order is used to move through selections of previous relevant studies. Jean Clandinin and Michael Connelly state that, ‘to use narrative inquiry methodology is to adopt a particular view of experience as phenomenon under study’.⁹ Clandinin and Jerry Rosiek then clarify that although narrative inquiry is often based upon experiences of individuals, it can also be defined as ‘an exploration of social, cultural, and institutional narratives within which individual’s experiences are constituted, shaped, expressed, and enacted – but in a way that begins and ends that inquiry in the storied lives of the people involved’.¹⁰

This article focuses upon narratives examining the subject of Sámi schooling experiences within Finnish ‘boarding school’ systems and possibilities of Finnish exceptionalism and/or ‘gentle’ colonialism existing therein. Here, Ronald Horvath’s ‘generally agreed’ elements of colonialism are utilized: control by one group over behaviours, territories or ideas of another group occurring at an ‘intergroup’ level. Horvath defined intergroup domination as a process occurring within a culturally heterogenous society, as opposed to a culturally homogenous one.¹¹ This definition includes the argument that colonialism encompasses three basic relationships between involved groups: extermination, assimilation and relative equilibrium (Indigenous groups are neither exterminated nor wholly assimilated).¹² Although many degrees of nuance exist within these classifications, Horvath argued these provided a strong foundation with which to begin identifying elements of colonial behaviours in an area.¹³ Narratives were selected from a range of years beginning in 1919 and ending in the late 2020s. Selections are listed chronologically, to illustrate major shifts in terminology and subject matter. Excluded are materials analysing Sámi schooling experiences in countries outside of Finland, as these countries lie beyond the scope of this article. Although the Sámi exist transnationally, this study aims to identify instances where authors discussing Finnish Sámi educational history contribute to a general narrative that the Finnish state has acted ‘less oppressively’ towards Sámi students than other countries with schools established for Indigenous populations. Sources were chosen due to their possession of unique, particularly new or groundbreaking arguments within the field of Sámi educational studies, and the author’s belief that these narratives were especially impactful upon the field’s historiographical timeline. Multiple disciplines are included in these narratives (including history, sociology and anthropology), as they all appear to utilize Finnish and Sámi history as components of their arguments and contribute meaningfully to the subject’s overall historiography.

History of residential schools in Finland: brief overview

Several historical narratives argue that in comparison to Swedish programmes and ‘state-endorsed socialization projects’ like nomad schools, Finnish state intervention regarding educational policies was quite minimal.¹⁴ This is attributed to the aftermath of the 1918 Finnish Civil War causing full-scale educational policies to be impossibly expensive in Finland.¹⁵ Although beyond this study’s scope, it is important to consider the numerous conflicts (including the Winter War, Continuation War, Lapland War and subsequent removal of German troops from northern Finland) that deeply affected the Sámi homeland. Juhani Lassila credited the 1866 Primary School Act with initial systematic development of schooling in Finland,¹⁶ with ‘folk schools’ that included dormitories for those travelling long distances existing in Sámi areas; one founded in Utsjoki in 1878, another established at Sodankylä in 1889 and one in Inari in 1894.¹⁷ Alexis Kallio and Marja Heimonen argued that during this time of establishment, education was ‘a primary means for shaping the constructed homogenous ideal of Finnishness’, resulting in Finland’s global image as a successful, homogenous society with cultural diversity present only as a result of increased migration trends.¹⁸

In Sámi communities, schooling was previously provided by travelling Christian catechist teachers speaking Finnish and Sámi dialects, combining literacy skills with components of religious education and giving the church significant responsibility for student instruction prior to 1940.¹⁹ This mobile schooling resulted from difficulties in transporting students to and from more remote dormitory school locations and transitions from travelling catechist teachers to folk schools took place throughout the early 1900s. The Finnish Parliament’s 1947 Compulsory Education Act mandated education for all children under 13 years, including those living over 5 km from central schools. Prior to this, children living in remote areas did not receive mandated state-run education. This law is often depicted by historians as well-intentioned or ‘more benign’²⁰; compulsory education in both urban and rural areas enabled more students to benefit from ‘adequate and equal’ educational programmes.²¹ In connection with the Public Education Act and to more easily service remote areas, the Finnish government created residential schools.

Unlike North American Indigenous residential schools that only taught students belonging to American Indian, First Nations, Inuit and Métis tribes, Finland’s residential schools included Finnish and Sámi students. Whereas North American Indigenous students resided in schools year-round or most of the year, students at Finnish schools could stay in school dormitories, return to their own homes with available transportation or were boarded in homes of nearby Finnish families. Though several historians argue that the Finnish government possessed no written policy directing total assimilation of Sámi students into Finnish culture through residential school systems,²² extant counter-narratives contend that the treatment of Sámi students in residential schools and boarding houses affected them in profoundly negative and lasting ways through intentionally assimilative behaviour.²³

Sámi students typically travelled long distances to attend schools, resulting in most returning to their families only during longer holiday breaks (if at all). Some writers – including Kukka Ranta, Jaana Kanninen and Kerttu Vuolab – recount burgeoning sociocultural disconnects resulting from these absences. Separated from their families, students were unable to regularly speak their native languages and could not participate in community cultural traditions. Only one school in Outakoski conducted class in Sámi; the majority were conducted solely in Finnish.²⁴ As a result, Sámi students were forced to adapt to the Finnish language to participate and ultimately, succeed. Students feeling pressured to ‘become Finnish’ added potential for dangerous cultural oversights: though schools were intended to give equal opportunities to all, Lehtola argued that ‘the downside of equal treatment was … that the starting points and values of the Finnish society were applied to the Sámi’.²⁵ This imposition of Finnish culture upon Sámi children resulted in the different languages, traditions, and needs of Sámi students being overlooked or ignored in favour of doing things ‘the Finnish way’. Residential schools began to diminish and disappear later in the 1970s, partially due to increases in Sámi movements protesting undesirable student treatment within dormitories and lack of Sámi cultural offerings in education.²⁶

Finland has not made an official public apology or outlined specific reconciliatory processes regarding Sámi children’s removal to residential schools. When Sweden’s 1998 apology for mistreatment of the Sámi was announced,²⁷ Finnish Minister of Justice Jussi Järvenpää subsequently defended Finland’s behaviour, stating that there were ‘currently no issues that would require an apology’.²⁸ Claims exist concerning former Finnish president Tarja Halonen’s ‘apology’ to the Sámi in the early 2000s. Although allegedly ‘plenty of Sámi people in the courts’ witnessed the speech, Halonen’s office states the text is unavailable and doesn’t recognize ‘that it was a pure apology’; subsequently, researcher Reetta Humalajoki mused, ‘If the apology doesn’t leave a mark in the history books, then perhaps the form should be thought about’.²⁹ In 2011, President Sauli Niinistö remarked: ‘The ILO [International Labour Organisation] convention has been drawn up for those countries where injustices by colonial powers on indigenous peoples have been rectified. Finland has not been under colonial power and the ILO convention does not apply to us as such’.³⁰ Lehtola added that generally, Finnish people felt that government policies towards Sámi communities have been more tolerant and less strict than those of Norway and Sweden.³¹ This idea that somehow, Finland is an exception – that it has not participated in or benefitted from colonial government practices and can claim a place of moral superiority over countries that have – encapsulates the theory of Finnish exceptionalism, which will be discussed later in the article.

In past and present scholarship, debates exist regarding whether the relationship of Finnish administration towards Sámi students in boarding schools intentionally endorsed colonial assimilation or instead assisted in the cultural adaptation of a minority group to a majority culture, particularly as no specific written policies existed directing assimilation. The relationship between terms like acculturation, integration, adaptation, and assimilation is complex, as all are socialization processes that may not be linear or have measurable beginnings and ends. Generally, adaptation is viewed as part of the acculturation process: the ‘process of change in response to a new environment’, one which mutually affects the larger or established culture that the smaller or ‘new’ culture is adapting to.³² Assimilation refers to rejection of one’s original culture to wholly conform to the majority culture. While assimilation can be an eventual outcome of adaptational or acculturation processes, additional processes such as separation, integration, or marginalization may also occur.³³ Appearances of, or discussions regarding, these terms will be included in the following analysis of Finnish Sámi educational scholarship.

Early scholarship of Finnish boarding schools: prior to 1990

Early scholarship of residential schools in Finland is sparse; few sources specifically mention Indigenous education in Finland until after the turn of the twentieth century. One of the earliest mentions of schooling in Finland occurred in 1919 by Swedish-Finnish anthropologist Erland Nordenskiöld. Nordenskiöld wrote that by 1915, Finland possessed 3250 national schools in rural areas³⁴; these schools were ‘mixed’ and around 51% of school-aged children attended them, although within ‘remote, thinly-populated’ parts of Finland, considerable numbers of children did not attend any school.³⁵ Although Nordenskiöld also discussed ratios of Swedish- and Finnish-speaking students in secondary schools at this time, no specific consideration was given to Sámi students’ culture or educational structures. Throughout the article, Nordenskiöld referred to the Sámi as ‘the Lapps.’ Currently, this term is generally considered derogatory and outdated; however, at the time the article was written (and extending through the 1970s), ‘Lapp’ was the prevalent term used in majority languages. In scholarly tradition, ‘Lapp’ is generally argued to be a ‘neutral’ term; however, it has also been argued that this term was originally rooted in majority culture with very little input from the Sámi themselves.³⁶ The Sámi community generally preferred (and currently prefers) to be known as Sámi (saamelainen).

Nordenskiöld concluded his study by presenting his perceived disparity in the treatment of Sámi by Finns and the ways in which Finland wished to be treated by the global community. He expressed hope that eventually Finland will know how to apply to the minority within its confines of the country the principle that it claims should be applied to their country in its entirety, viz. the right for small peoples to live their own life.³⁷ An early example of Finnish exceptionalism identified by a historian, this idea that Finland struggled with granting the same freedoms and powers to its minority populations that it had itself struggled for within the global community is a concept that increasingly permeates later scholarship of the subject, but is quite rare to find during these earlier periods.

The advent of the 1950s brought additions to the historiographical field in the form of Finnish ethnologist Toivo I. Itkonen, who specialized in Sámi culture and language. Growing up in Inari while catechism schools were still operating, Itkonen published a lengthy two-part work (The Finnish Lapps, I and II), a Skolt Sámi dictionary and a book examining Sámi folklore.³⁸ In his 1951 article ‘The Lapps of Finland’, Itkonen conducted detailed studies of craniometry/cephalometry, examining heights and skull measurements of Sámi individuals. Itkonen initially proclaimed that ‘he who meets a Lapp for the first time may consider him sullen, stupid, and suspicious;’ but went on to note, ‘the intelligence of the Lapps is greater than might be expected: wherever the children go to school it has been noted that their memory and capacity to understand are very much the same as those of any other nationality’.³⁹ Itkonen’s general attitude and language referring to the Sámi in this article echoed Nordenskiöld’s dispassionate descriptions of Finland’s minority populations. Itkonen’s terminology here overtly presented the Sámi as ‘lesser’ or ‘the Other’. This is identifiable in such phrasing as ‘the intelligence of the Lapps is greater than might be expected’, and ‘the dark side of [the Sámi] disposition is often idleness and lack of enterprise … order and cleanliness in housekeeping are often unsatisfactory, although it must be admitted that there is continuous improvement’.⁴⁰ Evident in these phrases are divides that Itkonen felt existed between the Sámi and the majority population.

Citing several of Itkonen’s arguments, Finnish sociologist Erkki Asp published The Finnicization of the Lapps: A Case of Acculturation in 1966. Asp argued that any assimilation occurring within Sámi communities occurred as part of the acculturation process. Defining acculturation as ‘the changing of cultures which takes place due to contact between cultures’ with each culture having reciprocal effects upon the other, Asp believed that this caused dissimilarities between ‘lower’ or ‘weaker’ cultures and ‘higher’ or ‘stronger’ cultures to gradually decrease, resulting in proper conditions for cultural assimilation to occur.⁴¹ Noting that assimilation of Sámi into the Finnish population increased dramatically in the 1950s, Asp theorized this was when the majority population first began to ‘pay attention’ to Sámi language and culture in education.⁴² Labelling residential schools as ‘acculturating influences’, Asp detailed how the many improvements of school ‘conditions and opportunities’ in the 1950s further resulted in increased ‘Finnicization’ of young Sámi.⁴³ When describing students in northern and southern Finland, Asp argued that the ‘backwardness of these northernmost communes’ of Sámi-speaking students was apparent in comparison to students in southern Finland.⁴⁴ Asp presented Finland as a benevolent influence upon Sámi communities, bestowing gifts of adequate and equal schooling upon a struggling and ‘backward’ minority group.

Of further interest within Asp’s work is the discussion of linguistics by a Finnish researcher. Asp debated whether Sámi students in residential schools considered Sámi or Finnish to be their ‘better language’; noting that while the number of Sámi students had been recorded in Inari and Utsjoki in order to consider ‘founding a parallel class for Lapp pupils’ where it ‘would be possible to take into consideration their cultural background and the needs presupposed by it’, that idea had never actually come to fruition.⁴⁵ Asp believed it was ‘obvious’ to boarding school teachers and ‘anyone who has followed the Lapps’ affairs’ that Sámi students did not wish to return to the ‘inadequate conditions’ of their familial settlements, but would rather remain working in their areas of schooling and would ‘quickly forget their Lapp culture’.⁴⁶ This was not presented as a negative outcome for these Sámi students; it was depicted as the natural order of things within schools. Comparing the ‘acculturation situation’ of the Sámi to that of ‘Red Indians’ in America, Asp believed that acculturation could only truly occur once schools, churches and administrative institutions were firmly established post-World War II in Finland.⁴⁷ Arguing that ‘the attitude of the main population towards the Lapps is nowadays positive in every way’, Asp lamented that ‘amongst [the Sámi] there are many problems which they can hardly solve without support from the majority’.⁴⁸

Additional studies by international authors appeared in the latter half of the 1900s. American professor Robert Belding’s 1974 study of Sámi education and Swedish scholar Tom Svensson’s 1987 exploration of Sámi cultural self-determination and ethnopolitics both focus upon Sámi residential schools in intriguing detail. Belding’s opening arguments utilize strong language:

Lapland is not a country. Throughout history, the Samer have been so dispersed, peripatetic, and resilient that they have made no effort to establish their own government, and unless a people has a government it has no nation. Or as one political scientist has recently declared: ‘A nation is a body of people that feels it is a nation’; the Lapps have not been sufficiently banded to utter this feeling.⁴⁹

Belding supplemented this argument with observations that the ‘three Scandinavian nations’ (identifying these as Finland, Sweden and Norway) were ‘pulling together in a common effort to help the almost forgotten Lapps’, as the voice of the Sámi had ‘not been very strong’.⁵⁰ Belding’s study intended to demonstrate how new forms of secondary schooling had ‘helped’ the Sámi population⁵¹ and presented all forms of Finnish Sámi schools as overwhelmingly positive structures meant to bring the light of knowledge to the ‘almost forgotten’ Sámi community. This specific idea – that Finnish schooling needed to be brought to Sámi areas and administered by Finnish staff to help dying and remote backwards communities – was pervasive at this point in the historiographical timeline. ‘Boarding schools for isolated secondary-school youths’, Belding mused, ‘are especially useful for Lapps who must traverse long stretches of snow from some isolated cluster of homes to study in a central, dormitory-like institution’.⁵²

However, Belding acknowledged the existence of ‘persistent problems’ within boarding school systems: lack of properly trained teachers who spoke Sámi dialects, and students’ need to leave home during schooling resulting in some students deciding to remain far from home permanently.⁵³ The geographical landscape of school locations appeared to shift in the early 1970s. Belding recorded occurrences of Sámi populations ‘assuming added responsibilities’; gaining more control over staff hiring and curriculum development, with schools being added within closer vicinity of Sámi communities and creating a ‘tendency to remain closer to home for their professional commitments’.⁵⁴ ‘At least half the future of Lapland’, Belding added, ‘lies in the hands of its youthful population’.⁵⁵ However, the through line within Belding’s arguments was firmly fastened to the great success that the Finnish government could boast in relation to the Sámi, ultimately concluding that ‘thanks to the respective governments as well as such humanitarian organizations such as UNESCO’, the Sámi’s future was ‘certainly less bleak’.⁵⁶ Belding believed Sámi residential schooling in Finland represented extensions of the government’s helpful arm towards a struggling people. ‘The continued importance of such round-up institutions’ was repeatedly emphasized; and although language loss was briefly mentioned when Belding noted that the Sámi’s ‘nine dialects have weakened as national Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish tongues have become the vernacular of public schools,’ any negatives were portrayed as not particularly lasting or traumatic for Sámi communities.⁵⁷

British anthropologist Tim Ingold presented a similar study in 1976, but described the experience of schooling for Sámi boys as restrictive, leaving students unable to find a ‘rewarding’ environment there; taught career skills limited to those in mechanical or industrial fields and not particularly applicable to either traditional Sámi pursuits or local employment opportunities.⁵⁸ Alternatively, Sámi girls eagerly rejected ‘those traditional constraints that tie the woman to the domestic sphere as a housewife and mother of a large family’; Ingold arguing that schools served as ‘a fairly effective bridge between their home community and placement in jobs on the quasi-urban fringes of the local region, or in towns and cities further afield’.⁵⁹ Ingold believed that young Sámi leaving their homes or becoming estranged from their familial communities after schooling didn’t result from ‘stigmatization’ or lack of access to Sámi communities, but ultimately ‘result[ed] from the attraction to zones of opportunity, not the avoidance of zones of stigma’.⁶⁰

Ingold further argued that it had become commonplace amongst outside nations for ‘the Lapp Question [to be] connected with the fate of American Indians, the Negro problem, and Black Africa’s struggle against colonial domination’.⁶¹ The ‘Lapp Question’ or ‘Problem’ are recurring terms found throughout early scholarship of Sámi education. Ingold’s argument regarding inaccuracies in equating Sámi student experiences with those of North American Indigenous students was indicative of changing academic opinions of Sámi students in Finnish society; that more academics were conducting critical analyses of school systems in Finland and if/how they resembled previous Indigenous schooling models. Ingold stated that ‘from the perspective of the home community, the world in which the periodic [Sámi] migrant moves whilst he is away lies outside society’.⁶² Sámi students, leaving home to attend school and returning infrequently, fell into Ingold’s category of existing ‘outside society’. Effects of this removal from society – regardless of length – upon students should not be ignored by scholars today.

Eleven years after Ingold’s publication, Svensson submitted a more multifaceted view of Finnish Sámi schooling. Dividing residential schooling into two time periods – developments occurring before and after the 1960s – Svensson argued that Sámi schooling opportunities before 1960 were incredibly limited, focusing mostly upon reindeer husbandry and Christianity with ultimate eventual aims of ‘de-ethnicization’.⁶³ He noted that residential schooling was ‘lacking’, as schools left out most Sámi-related subjects and omitted the Sámi language, resulting in an apparent ‘assimilative effect’.⁶⁴ Svensson credited the Sámi with increasingly influential social protests and political pressure in the 1960s; that pressure elevating Sámi primary schools to the level of majority-population primary schools and adding Sámi-specific subjects. He attributed more agency to Sámi communities themselves, crediting ‘a reasonably well educated and articulate elite of Sámi’ with improvements in Sámi educational standards; though noting that without Sámi intervention, breaking through bureaucratic ‘ice’ and ‘penetrat[ing] the firm resistance vis-à-vis appropriate schooling’ would not have been possible or would have taken much longer.⁶⁵

Published in 1987, Svensson's article was compelling in its attribution of nearly all increases in Sámi independence and educational control to Sámi agency and not the actions of a benevolent Finnish government. The author used terms like ‘de-ethnicization’ and ‘assimilative effect’ when referencing intentions of Finnish educators towards Indigenous students, but shared no Indigenous perspectives. Notably, Svensson emphasized the ‘reasonably well educated’ and ‘articulate elite’ when discussing pioneers in Sámi educational standards.⁶⁶ Contrasting these ‘articulate’ Sámi with ‘grassroots’ Sámi, Svensson noted the indispensability of the ‘skilled Sámi belonging to the leading stratum’ to occurrences of positive cultural change.⁶⁷ Highlighting the articulateness of a particular ethnic group could be interpreted as a racial microaggression, as the ascription of specific ideas regarding unexpected intelligence or eloquence to a minority group by the dominant racial group subtly signals that it is unusual for someone of that minority group to be intelligent.⁶⁸

1990s and Early 2000s: changing tides and introducing postcolonial critiques

An influx of Sámi-centric scholarship conducted by Sámi authors began appearing in the early 2000s, with Lehtola’s 2002 The Sámi People: Traditions in Transition, and Rauna Kuokkanen’s study of Sámi boarding school experiences within literary narratives following in 2003. Lehtola and Kuokkanen both of Sámi ancestry, provided readers with Sámi history from the perspective of the Sámi themselves. Lehtola specifically discussed negative effects of boarding schools upon Sámi students, focusing upon operation of schools in the 1950s and 1960s. He labelled the 1970s a turning point for young Sámi who had grown up reacting to lengthy assimilation processes, arguing that ‘World War II, the rebuilding after the war, the construction of roads and communications networks, changing customs and education all took place within the ideals and values of the dominant society’ in Finland.⁶⁹ Though Lehtola ultimately believed that socio-political awareness and cultural preservation efforts for the Sámi were slowly improving, he maintained that Sámi language perpetuation was still ‘weak’, traditional culture lacked sufficient legal and political protections and post-World War II government assimilatory practices resulted in many Sámi developing self-esteem issues related to their language and heritage.⁷⁰ Lehtola uniquely added to scholarship of the subject through his inclusion of accounts from former boarding school teachers and students, arguing that school assimilative practices were key factors in Sámi adopting majority population ideals and rejecting their own identities as Sámi.⁷¹ Lehtola recorded former school teacher Iisko Sara’s beliefs that, due to Finnish assimilative practices, ‘the Sámi wanted to become more Finnish than the Finns themselves’ and that, to have any real chance at succeeding within Finnish society, it became mandatory to adopt Finnish language, culture and values.⁷² Lehtola further noted Sara’s belief that the Sámi rarely succeeded in fully changing their identities.

Lehtola’s 2002 monograph was crucially important to extant scholarship, providing a platform for many representatives of Sámi traditions and politics. Lehtola emphasized important milestones in Sámi history, included quotations from Sámi individuals and utilized Sámi primary sources. Exploring ‘social Darwinism’ practiced by the Finnish government towards the Sámi, Lehtola explained that these ideas first reached Finland in the 1920s and 1930s with research promoting a Finnish ‘national identity [that] began to draw distinct borders versus Russians and Swedes, and in addition versus “primitive” people like the Sámi, who were culturally related’.⁷³ In discussing challenges experienced by Sámi historians, Lehtola noted that their historical research generally ‘struggles to establish general overviews and outlines’.⁷⁴ Although this monograph explored many aspects of Sámi culture, only one page specifically describes Finnish boarding schools. Differences between Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish assimilation policies were also thoroughly analysed. ‘It was hardest in Norway’, recounted Lehtola, where use of Sámi languages was forbidden in schools and boarding houses; Sweden, though ‘more moderate than Norway’, possessed stringent ‘segregation and isolation’ policies, and Finland was not mentioned further in connection with assimilative educational practices until later in the work.⁷⁵

Building upon Lehtola’s arguments, Kuokkanen endeavoured to illustrate ways in which ‘colonial education’ had produced similar effects upon Indigenous populations despite occurring in different parts of the world. This occurred through analysis of two literary narratives (Kerttu Vuolab’s Sataprosenttinen and Shirley Sterling’s My Name is Seepeetza) written by Indigenous women. Both books depicted young Indigenous girls (one Sámi child in Finland and one First Nations child in Canada) in the 1950s and 1960s attending residential schools for the first time, recounting their triumphs, challenges and first brushes with racism. Kuokkanen posited that the main goal of North American residential schools was to more effectively control Indigenous peoples, with the ultimate result of ‘bringing them into the circle of civilization’.⁷⁶ Arguing that Finnish assimilation policies were not as explicitly articulated as those of Sweden and Norway, Kuokkanen introduced an intriguing new question to the historiography: why did the Finnish government insist upon placing Sámi children into public school systems alongside majority population children, with no real or established considerations for cultural and language differences?⁷⁷ Kuokkanen noted a lack of historical research addressing this question, but theorized that the Finnish government assumed it would ‘provide Sámi children with an equal education and thus, equal opportunities for employment’ and that lack of consideration given to differences in linguistic and cultural backgrounds of Sámi children ultimately stemmed from ‘the overt and covert desire to eradicate those differences’.⁷⁸

Additionally, Kuokkanen introduced ideas that Nordic countries possessed flawed understandings of the Sámi as a ‘distinct people’; rather, interpreting the Sámi community as a ‘minority group’ comprised simply Finns who happened to speak a different language.⁷⁹ She attributed this to Nordic countries creating ‘their own specific version of colonialism’ where the Sámi was not classed as separate wards of the state like North American Indigenous tribes, but were instead wholly integrated into the construction of the nation ‘like any other citizen’.⁸⁰ Kuokkanen also argued that ‘while very unsettling in terms of indoctrination of values of the dominant society, including the notion of Sámi inferiority’, Finnish boarding schools were not the total sociocultural disruptor for Sámi students that schools were for North American Indigenous students.⁸¹ These ideas of benign or ‘gentle’ colonialism frequently appear in earlier scholarship of Sámi education; comparisons are drawn by historians between North American and Finnish boarding schools, with the former held up as illustrative of brutal and oppressive procedures or assimilation with the purpose of cultural eradication. By contrast, Finland is presented as a ‘gentler’ alternative. Kuokkanen succinctly captured this attitude when arguing that ‘if the educational crusade of the [North American] Native peoples was “vast in scope, military in organization, fervent in zeal, and violent in method”, Sámi experiences were less so’.⁸²

Finnish historian Maria Lähteenmäki made several arguments in 2006 regarding the Finnish-Sámi relationship, disputing ideas that historical ‘oppressor versus oppressed’ relationships existed between Finns and Sámi. ‘The pioneer settlers are branded and blamed for the disappearance of Saami culture’, Lähteenmäki wrote, adding that this ‘untenable misinterpretation’ was being utilized to promote Sámi visibility and emphasize their ‘cultural and ethnic uniqueness’.⁸³ Ultimately, Lähteenmäki believed that Finnish community divisions prior to the nineteenth century resulted from class differences, not ethnic ones. The only clear exceptions to this were the reindeer-herding Sámi, while other Sámi groups were considered by Finns as equals to themselves.⁸⁴ Lähteenmäki pointed out Finland’s linguistic minority status during Swedish rule; arguing that Finland did not have a specific ‘colonialistic’ policy of its own for minorities, so no systematic oppression or subjugation conclusively occurred.⁸⁵ Finnish exceptionalism can be identified several times throughout Lähteenmäki’s monograph, while clarifying that the Sámi were not ‘miserable wretches who were totally helpless and at the mercy of swindlers,’⁸⁶ she then delineated the superiority and benevolence of the Finnish-Sámi relationship in comparison to Norway and Sweden.

An academic decolonisation: 2010 to present

Major changes in scholarship and literary trends appear throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, as additions of Sámi individuals to the vast field of extant non-Sámi works increased. Monographs, poetry and academic articles are more often written from Sámi perspectives, and the addition of Sámi personal experiences in the form of former students chronicling their time at school also began to increase significantly. This trend shows no signs of slowing entering the later 2000s. The introspection of non-Sámi authors becomes more apparent during this time, particularly with Anna Rastas’ 2012 introduction of ‘Finnish exceptionalism’ and the social/historical circumstances which led to its formation.

In her study of relationships between Finns and people of African descent, Rastas identified a discourse she believed was occurring in these interactions; coining the term Finnish racial exceptionalism, Rastas described specific differentiations of Finland and Finnish people from other nations, alongside a ‘moral superiority’ present within discourses of Finland’s interactions with ‘the Other’.⁸⁷ Rastas argued that Finland, presumed innocent of colonial enterprises due to lack of establishing its own colonies, had yet ‘gained economically from colonialism’ and taken part in actions of colonial enterprises by Swedish colonists in North America and with ‘other Scandinavians’ in Africa.⁸⁸ Careful to clarify that racial exceptionalism was not exclusive to Finland, Rastas nevertheless built a strong case that significant portions of the Finnish population saw Finland as ‘a country with no history of racism’ – as victim of colonialism and racism itself – and that involvement of Finland with colonial enterprises was largely minimized in Finnish history books and lessons.⁸⁹ ‘Racism is dealt with as if it merely happened elsewhere’, Rastas mused, adding that when modern concerns were raised about the presence of racist attitudes in Finland, ‘these are often met by statements about Finland’s exceptional history as a country with no colonial involvements and no historical burden of racism’.⁹⁰ The struggles of Finns with feelings of racial exceptionalism are generally recorded in Rastas’ work as growing conflicts between Finnish national pride and increasing postcolonial criticisms of past and present Finnish racial ideologies. Rastas ultimately concluded that Finnish exceptionalism has been employed in order to ‘keep control: to retain the power to stop others (especially “them”, immigrants) from saying what “we” are like (or what we have been like) and from dictating what “we” can and cannot say.’⁹¹

Jukka Nyyssönen discussed Sámi‘ counter-narratives’ in 2013, arguing that Sámi people have put forth two ‘counter-narratives’ regarding their treatment by the Finnish state: Finland failing to provide proper welfare services for the Sámi community, and as a coloniser.⁹² Outlining Finland’s own ‘master narrative’ of Sámi relations as having multiple components, including ‘increasing prosperity through industrial and post-industrial development, and the survival of the welfare state’, Nyyssönen then argued that the ‘multiplicity’ of layers in the Finnish-Sámi relationship was lost if only ‘lumped under the category of colonialism’.⁹³ He also referenced Lehtola as a Sámi scholar who had ‘disengaged himself from extreme positions’ and who credited colonialism as ‘having a legitimate place in history’ while stressing how layered and complex Finnish-Sámi history was.⁹⁴ Nyyssönen analysed the arguments (‘colonial-critical’) of those he labelled the ‘most radical post-colonial scholars’ such as Rauna Kuokkanen and Irja Seurujärvi-Kari: but ultimately concluded that by only attempting to explain treatment of Sámi people by the Finnish state through a colonial lens, the result would be a ‘monocausal’ analysis that failed to examine many more complex dynamics of the relationship.⁹⁵

Prolific North Sámi scholar Veli-Pekka Lehtola continued to research this area, publishing several relevant works in 2015. Lehtola utilized the term ‘gentle colonialism’ in describing European attitudes towards Nordic and Scandinavian colonial involvement; specifically, general perceptions of Finland, Norway and Sweden’s relationships with their Indigenous populations being ‘gentler and based on collaboration rather than extortion and subjugation’ versus actions taken in North America and the United Kingdom.⁹⁶ Lehtola felt that Finnish-Sámi relations differed from those of Sámi and the Scandinavian nations, but felt that additional multi-layered contexts in which the historical Finnish-Sámi relationship existed must be considered before the ‘special character’ of this relationship could be accurately described.⁹⁷ As a result of Finland being historically ‘subject to superpowers’, Lehtola theorized that Finns had developed strong views of themselves as ‘representatives of democracy and tolerance, who also treated the Sámi on an equal basis’.⁹⁸

Only a few years later, Tuija Huuki and Sandra Juutilainen published a detailed study of racial discrimination experienced by Sámi women within Finnish residential schools. The authors concurred with Lehtola’s belief that a multitude of historical contexts must be considered regarding the Finnish-Sámi relationship and realities of Finnish racism towards Sámi students.⁹⁹ However, they also shared Kuokkanen and Lehtola’s opinions that being ‘subjected to the ideologies of the majority population’ produced sociocultural outcomes comparable to the effects of North American boarding schools upon Indigenous students.¹⁰⁰ Huuki and Juutilainen focused upon ‘structural injustices’ that Finnish school administrators used to culturally subjugate their students; here defining structural injustices as ‘rules, norms, accepted attitudes and behaviours in institutions and other societal structures’ that hindered the rights and opportunities of minority populations.¹⁰¹ They argued that in Finland, boarding schools were primary vehicles through which these injustices were delivered.¹⁰² Kallio and Heimonen echoed this argument, elaborating that ‘education was a primary means for shaping the constructed homogenous ideal of Finnishness’; while the authors believed schools were not ‘explicitly assimilatory’, again drawing comparisons between Finnish schools and those in Norway and Sweden, they concurred that Sámi students failing to conform to Finnish standards received punishment for these non-conformations.¹⁰³

Nyyssönen’s 2018 analysis of narratives produced about Sámi school experiences in Finland examined historical backgrounds affecting their formation.¹⁰⁴ Nyyssönen argued that during the nineteenth century, some schools were taught in Sámi and that Sámi dialects were never forbidden.¹⁰⁵ However, he added that ‘in practice nothing was done to arrange for teaching in Sámi … initiatives to secure Sámi educational rights were thus not put into effect’.¹⁰⁶ Subsequently, Nyyssönen discussed Sámi movements in the 1970s and 1980s that assisted in bringing lacking conditions in Sámi education to the public forefront. Nyyssönen remarked that some Sámi schoolteachers, concerned with losses of Sámi language and culture resulting from Finnish school policies, created a public discourse that ‘bordered on alarmist, as well as guilt tripping those who did not share their worries’; immediately following this, Nyyssönen added that at the time, the ‘various Sámi languages’ were indeed struggling to survive.¹⁰⁷ Nyyssönen’s work serves as a somewhat conflicted analysis; admitting that culture and language loss directly resulted from school policies, but simultaneously defending these policies. Appearing to view ideas regarding Finnish assimilation of Sámi culture as a tactic or ‘element in the narrative strategy’, Nyyssönen argued that any assimilation occurring was ‘unintentional’ due to lack of specific written policies, reinforcing reoccurring themes that Finland was more ‘Sámi-friendly’ than other Scandinavian countries.¹⁰⁸ Pointing to articles written by Lehtola as being ‘proponent of a darker narrative’; Nyyssönen refuted Lehtola’s arguments that teaching in Sámi did not occur due to institutional inaction with a counterargument that Sámi communities in fact wanted classes to be taught in Finnish, and that school officials echoed this desire.¹⁰⁹ Warning against history becoming ‘apologetic’, Nyyssönen emphasized his desire (similar to that of Lehtola’s request to consider the complexity of the Finnish-Sámi relationship) to create multivocal narratives that ‘move beyond histories of assimilation towards agentic histories of contact’.¹¹⁰

While the theories put forth by Nyyssönen may possibly represent similar ideas by segments of Finnish historians whom Lehtola referred to as being ‘ready to argue that it is not reasonable to talk about colonialism in the context of Sámi history’,¹¹¹ more recent work such as that of Finnish historian Suvi Keskinen strongly supports Lehtola’s argument that one cannot fully understand Finnish–Sámi relations without deeper understanding of historical contexts and ‘intra-Nordic power relations’ affecting this relationship.¹¹² Describing Finnish residential schools as ‘crucial’ to assimilatory effects upon Sámi students, Keskinen noted that any assimilatory policies in schools were ‘by no means exceptional to Finnish culture’ and that abolition of Indigenous culture was characteristic of colonial educational practices across the globe.¹¹³ In a later compilation by Keskinen, Sámi historian Niina Siivikko described positive effects of residential schools on young Sámi students: as a result of possessing standard Finnish educations, Sámi students created new networks and opportunities within Finnish society, eventually leading to what Siivikko labelled the ‘Sámi Renaissance’ in the later 1960s.¹¹⁴ The argument that, although residential schools created feelings of cultural shame and inadequacy amongst Sámi students, they also emboldened Sámi students to revitalize their traditional culture is one appearing more frequently in the early 2000s.

Pirjo Virtanen and Irja Seurujärvi-Kari theorized that while assimilation measures certainly targeted Sámi languages (resulting in their exclusion from public and school use), the Sámi were not specific targets of assimilation.¹¹⁵ Instead, they theorized that residential school students were taught the majority language and minority languages were neglected, due to rising Finnish nationalism; ultimately resulting in residential schools becoming symbols of state control over all minorities in Finland.¹¹⁶ Virtanen and Seurujärvi-Kari noted that the post-1990s Finnish government had given ‘significant funding and support’ for teaching of Sámi languages in the Sámi homeland from kindergarten through high school, and that the Sámi community continued to make headway in requesting teaching of Sámi language courses throughout Finland.¹¹⁷ In 2020, Keskitalo agreed with Virtanen and Seurujärvi-Kari’s major arguments: that Finland’s emphasis upon nationalism and ‘nation-state construction’ resulted in the neglect and omittance of minority languages from schools and that no specific ‘political action program’ was enacted regarding Sámi assimilation.¹¹⁸ However, Keskitalo advocated sharing Sámi students’ stories in order to ensure continued visibility of Indigenous voices within the historiography and to act as counter-narrative to more dominant accounts ‘of the colonizer’.¹¹⁹

Merja Paksuniemi and Pigga Keskitalo’s 2019 article examined an intriguing, rarely discussed element of Sámi schooling in Finland. Focusing upon Riutula Children’s Home in Inari, the authors noted that it was run by the Lutheran Young Women’s Christian Association and uniquely served as a private, non-governmentally run institution for Sámi and Finnish children. Arguing that this school cannot be compared to Indigenous residential schools in Australia and Canada due to this fact, Paksuniemi and Keskitalo used school archives to explore Finnish child protection programme policies, and the specific ideological measures taken to promote children’s morality within Riutula.¹²⁰ Ultimately, the authors argued that although the school did not give proper attention to Sámi language and cultural needs, it was ‘unlike other places in the world’ in that it did not intend to ‘eradicate’ Sámi language and culture; language loss was a side effect of ideologies highlighting Christian morality that were ‘already familiar to Finnish children’.¹²¹ Lehtola also discussed Tiina Saukko’s studies of the Riutula Children’s Home, noting that Finnish staff there saw Sámi children as ‘Finns who were only hindered by the Sámi language’; as such, Finns especially were needed to teach Sámi children proper living.¹²² Lehtola also recounted the belief of Aanaar Sámi Ilmari Mattus that although Riutula gave Sámi children a home, it also ‘required them to speak Finnish as a sort of return service’, thusly destroying students’ Sámi language skills.¹²³

Finnish and Swedish researchers Annbritt Palo, Lydia Kokkola and Lena Manderstedt have created one of the most recent additions to the historiography, making clear distinctions in their article between what is termed direct and indirect violence in relation to Finnish residential school systems. While direct violence includes more physical punishments such as verbal abuse/aggression and corporal punishment, indirect violence involves punishment conducted through establishment of specific rules, social structures and institutions.¹²⁴ The authors argued that while Sámi children experienced varying forms of direct violence at the hands of staff and fellow students, the students were only present in boarding schools due to the indirect violence of Finnish state decrees requiring their presence.¹²⁵ Students’ need to learn Finnish to keep up with lessons, eat only Finnish foods and dress in Finnish clothing and undergo bullying upon the basis of their heritage, all existed as forms of indirect violence. Palo et al. also presented ‘positive sides’ of boarding school attendance, the ‘increase of future life options’ for students in learning the majority language and the existence of schools as poverty relief systems for poorer students.¹²⁶ The authors drew comparisons between Swedish, Finnish and North American residential schools; arguing that ‘for all their faults, [Nordic and Scandinavian residential schools and workhouses] kept children alive’.¹²⁷ However, this article directly addressed the existence of Finnish exceptionalism, arguing that while Sweden had ‘officially acknowledged the impact of its colonial past on its citizens … Finland has no official policy of recognition and expresses no need for restitution or apology’.¹²⁸ Palo et al. concluded by reinforcing beliefs that until ideologies associated with Finnish exceptionalism have been recognized and addressed, these ‘assumptions of national innocence’ would continue hindering the Finnish-Sámi relationship.¹²⁹

The influence of innocence and the ‘suffering Olympics’

In White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race, Afro-Surinamese Dutch scholar Gloria Wekker introduced the idea of ‘white innocence’ as applied to race relations. Using relationships between the Dutch and those of African descent in the Netherlands, Wekker described how, within historical narratives and cultural archives, the Dutch created images of an ‘innocent, fragile, emancipated white Dutch self’ versus a ‘guilty, uncivilized, barbaric other’.¹³⁰ She argued that history had created an ‘unacknowledged reservoir of knowledge and effects’ based upon centuries of Dutch imperial rule and that this reservoir still played a significant role in race relations and ‘meaning-making’ processes today.¹³¹ ‘If you want to be equal to us, then don’t talk about differences’, Wekker remarked on paradoxical ideas of race and colour ‘blindness’ in the Netherlands, continuing that ‘if you are different from us, then you are not equal’.¹³² Wekker compared the case of the Dutch to other ‘former imperial nations’, specifically naming Sweden, Swedish exceptionalism and Swedish ideologies facilitating white innocence.¹³³ Despite failing to identify Finland by name, Wekker lamented the lack of extant whiteness studies within a European context that might enable further intra-European comparisons.¹³⁴

To relate Wekker’s arguments more directly to the Finland–Sámi relationship, one may observe Lehtola’s past thoughts on imperialism in Finland. While explaining common Finnish self-perceptions, Lehtola wrote that since Finland never possessed any overseas colonies, Finns therefore cannot ‘take pride of great tales of exploration and exploitation, such as Viking raids, superpower era, or polar expeditions’.¹³⁵ He then pointed out Nyyssönen’s belief that Finland sees itself as a ‘nonimperialistic democracy’ that has not subjugated other groups.¹³⁶ However, Rastas challenged ideas about this lack of colonial involvement using Finnish anthropologist Ulla Vuorela’s theory of ‘colonial complicity’: a process occurring in countries such as Finland that have ‘neither been historically situated as one of the colonial centres in Europe nor … been an “innocent victim” or mere outsider of the colonial projects’.¹³⁷ She argued that understanding shared commonalities and differences within colonial complicities of nations, and the different histories behind racial discourses, was crucial to understanding timelines of Finland’s own racial discourse within Finnish scholarship.¹³⁸ Questions regarding Finnish ‘innocence’ in relation to residential schools and how schools affected the Sámi are still debated within present historiography of the subject. The manner in which the Finnish government and public views their own complicity regarding assimilation of Sámi students through schooling, and to what degree that assimilation has affected Finnish-Sámi relationships today, are topics sorely in need of further discussion.

Considering Finnish self-representation within scholarship of residential schools is key to understanding the extent that self-representation may have affected accurate portrayals of Finnish administration in academic literature, in addition to the impact of residential schools upon Sámi students, families and ways of life. Though Keskinen portrayed residential schools as ‘crucial’ to the assimilation of Sámi students into Finnish culture, that claim was softened by the subsequent addition that ‘such policies are by no means exceptional to Finnish colonialism’, as residential schools have also assisted in shaping colonial ideals and policies in other parts of the world.¹³⁹ Lehtola argued that the term ‘colonialism’ cannot be used as a catch-all term to describe the entirety of historical events, including the Finnish-Sámi relationship; rather, he believed that colonialistic processes need not necessarily have been based upon conscious negative intentions towards a minority group, but that ‘there was usually a quite logical underlying way of thinking’ originating from Finnish values and ideologies.¹⁴⁰ Ultimately, Keskinen argued that ‘strong assimilation policies’ in Finland served as the ‘silenced underside’ of Finland’s modernization process, the subject should be further researched from a decolonial perspective and a multi-level model was used that differentiated between national and local levels of Finnish history to better understand the rationale behind the Finnish government’s actions.¹⁴¹

A particular master narrative appears to exist portraying Finland as gentler or ‘less colonial’ than other nations with Sámi populations and boarding schools; while many counter-narratives (mainly written by Sámi or Sámi-centric authors) directly contradict this master narrative. How does one accurately reconcile these differences in approach? ‘Instead of denying colonialism’, Lehtola mused, ‘a more profound analysis’ is required; one that may ultimately shift research foci and alter traditional ways of thinking about colonial behaviour and rhetoric.¹⁴² Denials of any purposefully assimilative processes in Finnish residential schools should fall under this denial of colonialism, similarly should shifting of blame to ‘more severe’ countries with ‘far worse’ assimilative policies. This shifting of blame dilutes and distracts from analyses of how the Sámi community was truly affected by Finnish government policies, as does failure to include and highlight Sámi research, primary sources and authors, whenever possible. Emphasizing perceived ‘more severe’ sufferings of populations in other countries does not further the goal of reaching more multilayered and nuanced understandings of the experiences of Sámi students at the hands of Finnish administrative policies.

Utilizing the definition found within clinical social work, comparative suffering describes ‘the practice of ranking, evaluating, and judging painful events’.¹⁴³ This comparative suffering – stating that Finland could not possibly have treated the Sámi as badly as X country because other Indigenous groups ‘had it worse’ elsewhere – sets dangerous precedents for future studies. Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University Antony Polonsky referred to comparative suffering as ‘the suffering Olympics’¹⁴⁴; participation in these Olympics leads to one group or individual minimizing their own pain, as they feel it does not measure up to ‘much worse’ pain felt by others and therefore unworthy of validation. Lehtola cautioned that when studying colonial histories, perspectives of ‘the power centres’ were often more strongly emphasized than those of the ‘colonized’, the Indigenous peoples; and thus, it was key to emphasize Indigenous perspectives as ‘both actors in and researchers of’ history.¹⁴⁵ Virtanen and Seurujärvi-Kari built upon this argument with postulations that any reconciliation between the Finnish government and Sámi community must be actualized ‘at various levels – personal, communal, regional, state’.¹⁴⁶

Conclusions

The historiography and scholarship of residential schools in Finland is not as comprehensive as one might expect; although some sparse writings mentioning Sámi education in the late 1800s and early 1900s exist, significant increases in research appear around 1970. This research occurs more frequently moving through the 1990s and cascades into a veritable flood approaching the early 2000s and present day. Works with Sámi authorship increase in frequency through the early 2000s, competing with the much larger number of Finnish, Swedish, English, Norwegian and other non-Indigenous authors previously dominating the field. As time moves on, observable shifts in convictions of non-Indigenous authors can be clearly demarcated. Earlier in this timeline, several non-Indigenous historians focus upon perceived Sámi racial traits and theories,¹⁴⁷ typically through use of racially motivated studies of craniometry/cephalometry or using ‘Othering’ language in attempts to link specific Sámi racial traits to physical attributes. This dramatic ‘Othering’ of the Sámi lessens in frequency and softens in tone as time progresses, but it may be argued that ‘Othering’ still occurs in more subtle, institutionalized forms. Lehtola described Matti Enbuske’s concept of ‘colonization of the mind’; a process involving ‘attitudes, views and mental constriction’ used to describe impacts of educational processes upon groups including Indigenous people, adding that this argument allowed historians like Enbuske to separate this sort of ‘mental colonization’ from ‘imperialistic histories’ or arguments accusing Finland of ‘colonial’ behaviour towards the Sámi.¹⁴⁸

These changes in academic trends initially reveal several studies by ‘outsiders’, non-Sámi authors, who portray the Sámi as curiosities or as a tragically forgotten, ‘backwards’, and dying race in need of memorialization before vanishing within Finnish culture.¹⁴⁹ Lehtola noted that with the advent of the 1970s (and respondent to Sámi demands for change), new perspectives examining possibilities of purposeful assimilation and ‘colonialist/imperialist’ behaviours by the Finnish government appeared, additionally reminding readers that arguments using blanket terminologies such as ‘colonialists’ and ‘oppressed Lapps’ may not be accurate in light of Finland’s complex historical context regarding race and assimilation.¹⁵⁰ Rastas implored historians to consider the dangers in ‘clinging to the national self-image of innocence’, which she believed to be the core of Finnish and Nordic-Scandinavian exceptionalism.¹⁵¹ Inability to fully come to terms with Finnish complicity in residential schools of the past will continue to negatively impact present Finnish–Sámi relations. If Finland portrays itself as completely free of colonial or assimilative behaviour towards the Sámi, productive social change and more comprehensive historical accuracy cannot be fully attained. Disregarding negative cultural effects that power inequalities have had upon the Indigenous community, referring only to previous ‘good intentions’ through establishment of schools for the Sámi people’s ‘own good’, and deflecting further criticisms by pointing to ‘far worse’ educational programmes of other countries collectively contribute to disconnects in the Finnish-Sámi relationship history.

As publications by Sámi authors continue to grow, the historiographical timeline reflects that voices of Indigenous people are hopefully becoming more heard, respected and circulated. Virtanen and Seurujärvi-Kari wrote that the responsibility of scholars studying this field involved further promoting reconciliation between Finnish and Sámi communities through serious examination of Indigenous histories and knowledge, more specifically, doing so through use of ‘Indigenous concepts, values and ideas’ to explore Sámi history.¹⁵² Using Indigenous methodologies and perspectives to explore Indigenous history has not, until recent years, been fully respected as a valid academic process. Linda Tuhiwai Smith addressed Indigenous scholars in theorizing that decolonisation of research methods must involve ‘centering [Indigenous] concepts and worldviews and … coming to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives and our own purposes’.¹⁵³ Jelena Porsanger subsequently argued that to successfully ensure Indigenous research is conducted in ‘a more respectful, ethical, correct, sympathetic, useful and beneficial fashion, seen from the point of view of Indigenous peoples’, it is crucial to incorporate Indigenous research methodologies and Indigenous-centric research into related scholarship.¹⁵⁴

Although Finland may not have possessed explicit policies directing assimilation like those of other countries, negative effects upon the Finnish Sámi community are comparable. Increased incorporation of Indigenous research and methodologies into scholarship of Sámi education in Finland will eventually, hopefully, lead to Indigenous-led research becoming the dominant direction of the historiographical timeline. Ultimately, this would present readers with more accurate portrayals of Finland’s complex, multi-layered relationship with the Sámi people, and why that relationship exists in its present form. Critically comparing and valuing Indigenous perspectives alongside official accounts given by Finnish institutions is a key step in the process of reconciliation. Minimizing the possibility of Finnish colonial ideologies and assimilative behaviours is not a sustainable path forward for historians of Sámi education in Finland. Indigenous-centric research bespeaks a sense of historic and cultural hope for Sámi scholarship in Finland – the hope that voices of those who were once silenced or dismissed will continue rising to the forefront.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the autho(r).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lindsay Elizabeth Doran

Lindsay Elizabeth Doran is a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Geographical and Historical Studies at the University of Eastern Finland. She received a master’s degree in Transnational and Comparative History from Central Michigan University, United States, and her dissertation specifically explores the roles and effects of colonial rhetoric within Indigenous residential school systems in the United States and Finland. The author’s work also focuses upon the increased inclusion of Indigenous research methodologies in history. Lindsay currently lives in southern Finland.

Notes

1. Cairns, “Exceptionalism and Globalism,” 33.

2. Rastas, “Reading History,” 89.

3. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 23.

4. Palo et al., “Forced Removal,” 2.

5. Viallon, “We are the Land,” 4.

6. Wekker, White Innocence, 16.

7. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 23.

8. Foste, “Exploring the Methodological Possibilities,” 11.

9. Connelly and Clandinin, “Narrative Inquiry,” 46.

10. Ibid.

11. Horvath, “A Definition of Colonialism,” 46.

12. Ibid., 47.

13. Ibid.

14. Lähteenmäki, The Peoples of Lapland, 303; Nyyssönen, “Narratives of Sámi School,” 106.

15. Palo et al., “Forced Removal,” 6.

16. Keskitalo, “Sámi Education Challenges,” 21.

17. Ibid.

18. Kallio and Heimonen, “A Toothless Tiger?,” 152.

19. Siivikko, “Finnish Media Representations,” 6.

20. Kuokkanen, “’Survivance’”, 708; Viallon, “We are the Land,” 4.

21. Siivikko, “Finnish Media Representations,” 6.

22. Palo et al., “Forced Removal,” 6; Kuokkanen, “’Survivance’,” 706; Huuku and Juutilainen, “Mapping Historical,” 7; Viallon, “We are the Land,” 10.

23. Partida, “Suffering Through the Education,” par. 2; Ranta and Kanninen, Vastatuuleen; Vuolab and Piippola, Sataprosenttinen.

24. Nyyssönen, “Narratives of Sámi School,” 101.

25. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 29.

26. Nyyssönen, “Narratives of Sámi School,” 102.

27. Banting and Kymlicka, “Multiculturalism Policies”.

28. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 23.

29. Hedberg, “Näin Pyydät Oikein”.

30. Lehtola, Saamelaiskiista: Sortaako Suomi alkuperaiskansaansa?, 31–2.

31. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 27.

32. Mayhew, “Adaptation and Acculturation”.

33. Ibid.

34. Nordenskiöld, “Finland: The Land,” 374.

35. Ibid., 375.

36. Robinson, Neil. “Sami Studies”.

37. Nordenskiöld, “Finland: The Land,” 376.

38. Sámi musea Siida, “T.I. Itkonen”.

39. Itkonen, “The Lapps of Finland,” 37.

40. Ibid.

41. Asp, Finnicization of the Lapps, 114.

42. Ibid., 34.

43. Ibid., 48.

44. Ibid., 64.

45. Ibid., 65.

46. Ibid., 66.

47. Ibid., 114.

48. Ibid.

49. Belding, “The Lapps,” 502.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid., 503.

52. Ibid., 506.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid., 507.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid., 502.

58. Ingold, The Skolt Lapps Today, 129.

59. Ibid., 127.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid., 239.

62. Ibid., 131.

63. Svensson, “Patterns of Transformation,” 5.

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. Sue et al., “Racial Microaggressions,” 271.

69. Lehtola, The Sami People, 9.

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid., 62.

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid., 46.

74. Ibid., 104.

75. Ibid., 45.

76. Kuokkanen, “’Survivance,’” 707.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid., 708.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid., 706.

82. Ibid., 708.

83. Lähteenmäki, The Peoples of Lapland, 204.

84. Ibid., 303.

85. Ibid.; Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 24.

86. Lähteenmäki, The Peoples of Lapland, 205.

87. Rastas, “Reading History,” 1.

88. Ibid., 3.

89. Ibid., 12.

90. Ibid., 13.

91. Ibid., 19.

92. Jukka Nyyssönen, “Sami Counter-Narratives,” 101.

93. Ibid., 104.

94. Ibid., 113.

95. Ibid., 116.

96. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 23.

97. Ibid.

98. Ibid.

99. See Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 23.

100. Huuki and Juutilainen, “Mapping Historical, Material,” 5.

101. Ibid., 6.

102. Ibid.

103. Kallio and Heimonen, “A Toothless Tiger?,” 152.

104. Nyyssönen, “Narratives of Sámi School,” 100.

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid., 101.

107. Ibid., 102.

108. Ibid., 106.

109. Ibid.

110. Ibid., 110.

111. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 24.

112. Keskinen, “Intra-Nordic Differences,” 164.

113. Ibid., 176.

114. Siivikko, “Finnish Media Representations,” 3.

115. Virtanen and Seurujärvi-Kari, “Sámi Reconciliation in Practice,” 5.

116. Ibid.

117. Ibid., 9.

118. Keskitalo, “Sámi Education Challenges,” 22.

119. Ibid., 27.

120. Paksuniemi and Keskitalo, “Christian Morality and Enlightenment,” 165.

121. Ibid., 180.

122. Lehtola, “Sami and the Church,” 1105.

123. Ibid.

124. Palo et al., “Forced Removal,” 2.

125. Ibid.

126. Ibid., 10.

127. Ibid.

128. Ibid., 15.

129. Ibid.

130. Wekker, White Innocence, 15.

131. Ibid., 2.

132. Ibid., 16.

133. Ibid., 17.

134. Ibid.

135. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 23.

136. Ibid.

137. Rastas, “Reading History,” 5.

138. Ibid.

139. Keskinen, “Intra-Nordic Differences,” 176.

140. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 10.

141. Keskinen, “Intra-Nordic Differences,” 179.

142. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 10.

143. Iwanusa, ‘“The Suffering Olympics’,”.

144. Rudling, “Warfare or War Criminality?,” 376.

145. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 31.

146. Virtanen and Seurujärvi-Kari, “Sámi Reconciliation in Practice,” 26.

147. Itkonen, “The Lapps of Finland,” 37; Belding, “The Lapps,” 502; Ingold, The Skolt Lapps Today, 129.

148. Enbuske, Lapin asutuksen, 217; cited in Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 26.

149. Nordenskiöld, “Finland: The Land,” 376; Belding, “The Lapps,” 506.

150. Lehtola, “Sámi Histories, Colonialism,” 24.

151. Rastas, “Reading History,” 20.

152. Virtanen and Seurujärvi-Kari, “Sámi Reconciliation in Practice,” 21.

153. Smith, “Decolonizing Methodologies,” 39; cited in Porsanger, “An Essay,” 107.

154. Porsanger, “An Essay,” 4.