We all know that the current situation with Russia and Ukraine is rapidly changing a lot of the ways and values on which we have been relying in the past decades for our everyday lives. But recently I was surprised when discussing the impacts with Karoliina Majuri, a reindeer herder and colleague here at Lapland …
Continue reading The influence of world politics in the forest of Northern Lapland
Dear readers, the University of Lapland offers four full-time PhD positions in an open call. So basically any topic in Arctic Social Sciences go. I would very much hope that we get many really good candidates from Arctic Anthropology to these jobs, and can fill some of these positions with anthropologists. The positions are probably …
”Shamanism, Symbolism and Culture. Role and function of art in the transmission of culture and cultural practices” The University of Lapland's Arctic Centre, Rovaniemi, Finland, is pleased to announce confirmation of a 2 day International Shamanism Seminar which will be held on 27th - 28th of November 2014. The key speaker is Mihaly Hoppal from …
About the intrigues around this year’s celebration and why they reminded me of one of the darkest chapters of Sámi history. For this year’s Sámi National Day I happened to be in Murmansk and I witnessed the celebrations, which were preceded by some red hot intrigues. The day traditionally starts with the raising of the …
Continue reading Celebrating the Sámi National Day in Murmansk
Narratives, bureaucracies and indigenous legal orders: Resource governance in Finnish Lapland is the title of our chapter in a volume titled “Polar Geopolitics? Knowledges, Resources and Legal Regimes”, which has been published end of January. The aim of our chapter is twofold: Firstly, to examine narratives of indigeneity and secondly to investigate how these are …
Foreign, as well as Swedish based mining companies, prospect and exploit – as in drilling – for stones and minerals like never before in Sweden. The country is in at least the local newspapers presented as a Klondike, full of treasures just waiting to be ‘picked up’. Abandoned and Closed Mines in Sweden – a …
Continue reading The Mining Situation in Sweden from an Environmental Perspective – a Few Examples
Nomadic and Indigenous Spaces. Productions and Cognitions. Edited by Judith Miggelbrink, Joachim Otto Habeck, Nuccio Mazzullo and Peter Koch (2013). Surrey: Ashgate. With contributions from the editors, Denis Wood, Denis Retaillé, Gail Fondahl, Brian Donahoe, Joseph J Long, Kirill V Istomin, Florian Stammler, Claudio Aporta, and Tim Ingold (epilogue) How is space produced and how is …
Continue reading New publication: Nomadic and Indigenous Spaces. Productions and Cognitions
Some Testimonies About Forced Anti-Alcoholism Measures Among Saami People in the Soviet Union In one of my first encounters with an elder Saami on the Kola Peninsula (Russia) about five years ago I was told about an institution with the weird name Prophylactic Medical Labour Camp (russ. lechebno-trudovoi profilaktorii, or just LTP). What I was …
Continue reading An Unexpected Encounter at the Flight Training Unit
As a part of our advanced course on the anthropological study of resources in the North we screen a rare film tomorrow Thursday, 18 April at 16:30 in the Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi, in the POLARIUM room. Kultajoki - Gold River is a careful portrait of several individual characters who found their dedication in small …
Some of our team were recently at the Jokkmokk winter conference, which is held in connection to the famous Jokkmokk winter market, an important event in the Sámi yearly cycle for the last 400 years. The Jokkmokk winter market has been held already more than 400 years. Now mining comes closer to this place too, …
Arctic Anthropology 