The Long Walk VI: An Interview with Robert Paine in Three Acts

Abstract

two enthusiasts of Saami ethno'politics, reindeer pastoralism and northern studies in general, have ensconced themselves at the latter's home in Stockholm. Their mutual project assignment from the journal Nomadic Peoples is to come aw~y with the makings of an interview article featuring Robert, and toward this end the table at which the two white-haired anthropologists sit is strewn with papers and books on herding, and cluttered with cassette tapes, microphone, recorder and a freshly opened bottle of Glenfiddich. It is evening, and Robert, recently arrived from Troms0, Norway, and bursting with the latest developments in Norwegian Saami affairs, is flatly disinterested in any mellow career summation. For him this is a glorious opportunity to talk reindeer and Saami affairs. In fact, for the both of them the pleasures of field memories and herding comparisons prove irresistible, but in the back of a mind whose acuity decreases with the Glenfiddich, Hugh knows he must also coax from Robert some basic reflection on the why, how and wherewithal of his pastoral engagement.

Conceptualising resilience in Norwegian Sámi reindeer pastoralism

“…The first problem is evidenced fairly clearly -proximately by the argument we examined, and in a more diffuse form across much of current Norwegian reindeer policy and governance. As others have observed before us, the knowledge base of state policy on pastoralism (in Norway as elsewhere) tends to be premised upon reductive simplifications, from one term to a component that stands in for it (Beach, 1981(Beach, , 2004Bjørklund, 1999Bjørklund, , 2004Paine, 1992Paine, , 1994Paine, , 2004Reinert, 2008). These simplifications may be elegant, easy to represent and methodologically convenient -but when they translate into action, and the drive to generate simplified accounts begins to reorganise reality in its own image, this starts creating highly problematic interferences with the actual practice of pastoralism.…”

“…Both in Norway (Bjørklund, 2004;Reinert, 2008) and elsewhere in Scandinavia (Beach, 1981;Forbes et al, 2006), the management of reindeer pastoralism has often been described in terms of 'development', 'modernisation' or 'rationalisation'. Accidentally or otherwise, such descriptions double as critique: capturing the manner in which administrative conduct and decisions at the science-policy interface have…”

“…On the one hand, then, we suggest that the concept of resilience is being (re)deployed within the frame of a long-standing, strongly equilibrium-based management ideology, sustained for decades by powerful interests at the Norwegian science-policy nexus (Beach, 2004). On the other hand, another strand of research is developing resilience terminology as a way to advance understandings of the pastoral ecology as a complex and dynamic system, threatened by factors that tend to remain invisible within dominant government discourse and scientific narratives: factors such as loss of pastures to competing forms of land-use -including extractive industries, energy and infrastructure developments, expanding tourism and a growing population of protected carnivores -and the ongoing pressure from state agricultural and environmental authorities to de-stock, as a step towards 'modernising' production.…”