Groupism and the politics of indigeneity: A case study on the Sámi debate in Finland

Abstract

The article addresses the problems of defining an indigenous people by deconstructing the Sámi debate in Finland, which has escalated with the government's commitment to ratify ILO Convention No. 169. We argue that the ethnopolitical conflict engendered by this commitment is a consequence of groupism, by which, following Rogers Brubaker, we mean the tendency to take discrete groups as chief protagonists of social conflicts, the tendency to treat ethnic groups, nations and races as substantial entities and the tendency to reify such groups as if they were unitary collective actors. The aim of the article is to deconstruct groupist thinking related to indigenous rights by analytically separating the concepts of group and category. This allows us to deconstruct the ethnicised conflict and analyse what kinds of political, social and cultural aspects are involved in it. We conclude that indigeneity is not an ethnocultural, objectively existing fact, but rather a frame of political requirements.

The Consequences of Swedish National Law on Sámi Self-Constitution—The Shift from a Relational Understanding of Who Is Sámi Toward a Rights-Based Understanding

“…In the context of the Sámi, it is clear that the global discourse of indigeneity has affected the local indigenous political arena and created conflicts within Sámi societies The Consequences of Swedish National Law on Sámi Self-Constitution 295 (Valkonen, Valkonen, & Koivurova, 2017). While there has only been some discussions within Sámi society in Sweden and Norway about definitions connected to who is able to vote according to the Sámidiggi/Sámi Parliament Act, the debate in Finland has been intense and contentious (see Aikio & Åhrén, 2014;Joona, 2013Joona, , 2015Junka-Aikio, 2016;Nyssönen, 2015;Pettersen, 2017;Sarivaara, Uusiautti, & Määtää, 2013;Valkonen, Valkonen, & Koivurova, 2017). This debate, which have focused on the individual right to belong to an indigenous community vs the collective right of indigenous peoples to decide their own membership criteria, is reflected in the HRC's decisions toward Finland (CCPR/ C/124/D/2668/2015; CCPR/C/124/D/2950/2017).…”

Ethnic reindeer herders: Groupness among reindeer-herding Sámi in Northwest Finnish Lapland

“…There are Sámi who have not had themselves entered on the roll. However, in practice the roll has become a symbol of who is accepted as a Sámi and who is not (see Valkonen et al, 2016). 5 The word verdde is Northern Sámi and means literally a 'friend' or a guest-friend.…”

The politics of belonging in the Indigenous North

“…For instance, it seems that contests over who counts as Sami begin to emerge as indigenous groups started to be recognised as having a special status at both the national and international level. At the national level, legislation was enacted to recognise the Sami's unique culture and ancestry and their status as an indigenous people who have the right to special protection (Valkonen, Valkonen and Koivurova. 2016).…”

“…As well as this shift in status, some other tangible benefits (again, often very limited) do begin to flow to such groups. For instance, the Sami have been granted a degree of cultural and political autonomy since the mid-1990's (Valkonen, Valkonen and Koivurova. 2016).…”