Is Nonterritorial Autonomy Wrong for Indigenous Rights? Examining the ‘Territorialisation’ of Sami Power in Norway

Abstract

Nonterritorial autonomy (nta) decouples governance of ‘people’ and ‘place’, allowing demographically submerged minorities to protect their cultural – but not territorial – interests. Indigenous peoples are often submerged and culturally vulnerable. At the same time, they are often especially interested in protecting the territories that have long sustained them. So, is nta well-suited or ill-suited for Indigenous self-governance? To explore this, we study Norwegian Sami self-governance, an oft-cited case of Indigenous nta. We make several contributions. We enumerate the variety of Sami-specific rights and powers in Norway, categorising them as either territorial or nonterritorial and tracking their evolution over time. By doing this we reveal that Sami self-governance has recently taken a ‘territorial turn’. We explore why this has happened, concluding it is due to the insufficiency of nta. Finally, we discuss likely limits to further Sami territorialisation.

Economy, territory, and identity: A Rokkanian analysis of Indigenous self-determination in Canada and Norway

“…In general, being so integrated into Norwegian society and with no exit options, the strategy is to make the Sámi dimension visible within the Norwegian institutional landscape. The dispersal of Sámi across Norway coupled with the unitary nature of the Norwegian political and administrative system, therefore, leads naturally to a national institution like the Sámi Parliament (Samediggi) rather than territorial autonomy on a regional basis, as is the case with Inuit in Canada (Spitzer & Selle, 2020).…”

“…In general, Sámi territorial rights are difficult to define because they strongly interact with the complex relationship between collective and individual Indigenous rights in Norway. Depending on the circumstances, land rights are less collective and more privately based than in Inuit Nunangat and are accompanied by more internal variation and potential for conflict (Spitzer & Selle, 2020;Falch & Selle, 2021).…”