Politics of decoupling: breaks between Indigenous and imported senses of the Nordic North

Abstract

This article examines the problems met while implementing wilderness and landscape approaches to research in multilingual, Indigenous places where local lexicons only partially correspond to these external conceptualizations. The case study focuses on Sámi communities in the European North and the question of how research projects, even when they aim to respect Indigenous values, can in practice become another means by which the established relations of domination are confirmed and perpetuated. The article concludes that disengaging from this type of double logic, or decoupling, demands a broad willingness from researchers to learn from the diverse and often dissimilar rationales and nomenclatures of communities in the margins. For scholarly research in particular, this task requires becoming sensitive to epistemological discontinuities while maintaining constant self-assessment of both the use and effects of standardized Western academic discourse in our research projects.

Keywords:

• (post)colonialism
• double logic
• polyglot margins
• Sámi earth-viewing
• contested lexicons
• geograph

Notes

1. “Regime” is one of the key words used in this article. It refers to formal and informal arrangements by which particular public and private actors co-orchestrate authority and control over their fields of concern. In other words, regime is a modus operandi of cooperation and governance comprised of shared rules, conventions, and communicative norms (see Gibbs and Jonas 2000, p. 305; Lehtinen et al. 2004, pp. 11–13).

2. (Post)colonialism can be interpreted both as an emancipatory way of criticizing an unevenly developed world and as a continuity of European imperial aggression (Ridanpää 1998, pp. 67–77). My use of the term refers to the initial phase of critical academic self-reflection on past and present participation in colonial arrangements. Drawing a strict line between the colonial and postcolonial eras can therefore be regarded as a premature demarcation of past and (purified) present. It is for this reason that I place the prefix of “post” in parentheses (see Lehtinen 2006, p. 19).

3. My background is in environmental movements and action research. In action research I have used intervention techniques that guide the researcher toward systematic critical reflection on participation, both at the sphere of collective goal formulation and in terms of political outcome (Touraine 1981; Lehtinen 1991, pp. 74–77). The method is further enhanced by using (post)colonial theory to examine hidden signs of social inequality and the internal contradictions and disagreements of group cultural dynamics (Said 1993, p. 106; Barry 2002, pp. 194–202; Kuortti 2007, p. 155; Lehtinen 2008b). In general, my involvement in action research work has aimed at supporting reciprocal cooperation between Southern and ethnic (Northern) environmental concerns in the context of land management. This work has been guided and inspired by several Sámi scholars, especially Oula Näkkäläjärvi in Anár and Elina Helander-Renvall in Ochejohka.

4. This article uses the Northern Sámi conceptualization via reference to the dictionary database Álgu (2008). I also used neighboring Sámi languages such as Southern Sámi for guidance; these uses are described case by case.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ari Aukusti Lehtinen

Ari Aukusti Lehtinen is Professor at the Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland