No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Extractive Violence on Indigenous Country Sami and Aboriginal Views on Conflicts and Power Relations with Extractive Industries
Abstract
Asymmetrical conflicts and power relations between extractive industries and
Indigenous groups often have devastating consequences for Indigenous peoples.
Many Indigenous groups are struggling to maintain their lands as Indigenous
perspectives on connection to Country are frequently undervalued or dismissed in
favour of extractivist ideologies. While this conflicted interface has been researched
in various parts of the world, studies exploring conflicts and power relations with
extractive industries from Indigenous perspectives are few.
This thesis is an international comparison aiming to illuminate situations of
conflict and asymmetrical power relations caused by extractivism on Indigenous
lands from new viewpoints. By drawing on two single case studies, the situations for
Laevas reindeer herding Sami community in northern Sweden and Adnyamathanha
Traditional Owners in South Australia are compared and contrasted. Yarning (a form
of interviewing) is used as a method for data collection and in order to stay as true as
possible to the research participants’ own words a number of direct quotes are used.
The analysis employs peace researcher Johan Galtung’s concepts of cultural and
structural violence as analytical tools to further explore the participants’ experiences
of interactions with extractive industries and industrial proponents, including
governments. In addition, the thesis introduces the concept of extractive violence as a
complement to Galtung’s model. Extractive violence is defined as a form of direct
violence against people and/or animals and nature caused by extractivism, which
predominantly impacts peoples closely connected to land. The concepts of structural
and cultural violence are understood as unjust societal structures and racist and
discriminating attitudes respectively.
A number of main themes could be identified in the research participants’
narratives. However, the most prominent on both continents was connections to
Country and the threat that extractive violence posed to these connections.
The results show that although the expressions of cultural, structural and
extractive violence experienced by the two Indigenous communities varied, the
impacts were strikingly similar. Both communities identified extractive violence,
supported by structural and cultural violence, as threats to the continuation of their
societies and entire cultures. Furthermore, the results suggest that in order to
address violence against Indigenous peoples and achieve conflict transformation,
Indigenous and decolonising perspectives should be heard and taken into account.
Keywords: Aboriginal, Adnyamathanha, Australia, conflict, cultural violence,
extractive industries, extractive violence, Indigenous peoples, Laevas čearru, LKAB,
nuclear waste repository, Sami, structural violence, Sweden.
... On a global scale Indigenous peoples' lands and waters are subjected to high levels of extractive industry activity and extractivism often has negative impacts on the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous communities. Protecting and preserving the natural world is most often placed second to extracting resources for financial gain in the global capitalist market economy system, placing Indigenous communities at risk of being subjected to different forms of violent societal structures, including extractive violence [12]. Even in an era of pushing for green energy transformation, possibly viewed and marketed as less "dirty" and invasive, these efforts often still impact Indigenous communities in deleterious ways. ...
... The remaining principles of holism, interrelatedness, and synergy refer to how Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous stories are used in research processes [51]. As stated, and practiced by Sehlin MacNeil, relationships are valued and protected by respecting each other and the intellectual property shared which should also be reciprocal, research should not be extractive but mutually beneficial for both researcher and research participants [12] (pp. [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. ...
... [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. When research is conducted on rather than with Indigenous peoples, thus without adherence to Indigenous protocols ethics and methodologies, the results are rarely fully relevant to the Indigenous communities they impact [12,49]. ...
This paper evaluates the method Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) from the perspectives of Indigenous methodologies and Indigenous standpoint, in order to identify some strengths and limitations of using S-LCA in Indigenous contexts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to measure environmental impacts connected with all stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. S-LCA is a methodology designed to include the social aspects of sustainability in the LCA methodology. S-LCA emphasizes stakeholder involvement and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) S-LCA guidelines (2020) lists Indigenous communities as possible stakeholders. With a focus on Indigenous communities in the Arctic region we also include comparative aspects from Australia to generate new conceptualizations and understandings. The paper concludes that S-LCA has the potential to facilitate opposing worldviews and with some further developments can be a valuable methodology for Indigenous contexts.
... In the last decade, the fast growing wind energy sector has caused a number of new conflicts related to energy projects [13,30,[50][51][52][53]69]. All conflicts in the North of the country are intertwined with what some authors refer to as the colonisation of the North [30,48,50,51,68,70]. A notable exception is the case of Vellinge in Skåne (Southern tip of Sweden) where the local population protested against offshore wind turbines on the grounds of a perceived violation of the people's right to make their voice heard in the decision making process [53]. ...
... Apart from production, the management of electricity transmission in the form of grid expansion has given rise to conflicts [70]. Despite this list of conflicts, some authors point out that participation in the management of the Swedish energy system is much more prevalent than in other countries like Norway or the UK [71,72]. ...
The way in which we produce and consume energy has profound implications for our societies. How we configure our energy systems determines not only our chances of successfully dealing with climate change but also, how benefits and burdens of these systems are distributed. In this paper, we set out to map the literature on conflicts related to the energy system in Sweden using a framework of energy justice. The purpose of this exercise is twofold: first, to identify and understand energy conflicts in Sweden through the research that is published; and second, to identify gaps in the literature on energy justice in Sweden. This systematic review builds upon 40 scholarly articles focusing on energy conflicts in Sweden. All articles were written in the time period from January 2010 to January 2021. All articles were published in English in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The papers were analysed using a framework for energy justice that focused on the elements of distributional and procedural justice and recognition justice. The findings of the review suggest that there has been little explicit focus on energy justice in the literature on Sweden's energy system. Issues of distributional justice are most raised and procedural and recognition justice are often conflated in research. While conflicts over hydropower and nuclear have dominated in the past, wind energy in Sami territory is most problematised in the reviewed literature. The understanding of justice in the Swedish energy system is currently missing two elements: a rigorous handling of ecologically unequal exchange and restorative justice.
... Här pekar respondenter som företräder Svenska Samernas Riksförbund inte minst på förekomsten av det som brukar definieras som strukturellt våld, där våldet är inbyggt i strukturer och kan identifieras genom orättvisa eller ojämlika förhållanden i samhället. Förhållanden som i sin tur skapar olika förutsättningar i livet, genom att man till exempel inte har eller ges möjlighet att bestämma över de resurser som man är beroende av (se till exempel Galtung, 1990;Sehlin MacNeil, 2017). ...
... Ett exempel på strukturellt våld är när en grupps kunskap om förekomsten av till exempel rovdjur konsekvent underkänns och det måste till vetenskapliga studier för att belägga kunskapen, först då blir den giltig. Även om människor inte kommer till fysisk skada visar studier att det strukturella våldet göra lika stor skada som det direkta våldet Galtung, 1990;Sehlin MacNeil, 2017). ...
Trust in society, and in fellow human beings, is what keeps societies together.
A society, including its various components, characterized by a high level of
trust is believed to work better than if the level of trust is low. The purpose
of our study is to evaluate the trust in the survey system for large carnivores
among the authorities and interest organizations that are directly affected by
the system. Based on interviews, we evaluated the trust through six different
sub-components; communication, responsibility and competence distribution,
resources, respect, knowledge and justice. We have identified deficiencies in all
six subcomponents, which in combination show that the level of trust in the
survey system is low.
• Communication in the system; how communication takes place, what is
communicated, and in which way communication is delivered is perceived
as insufficient.
• The division of responsibility and competences is perceived as unclear.
There is a gap between those who establish rules and guidelines and those
who carry out the surveys, which is why relationships are more marked by
control and distrust than by room for maneuver and trust.
• The allocated resources for surveys are not sufficient or prioritized incorrectly; e.g. wolves are prioritized wolf at the expense of the other species.
This reduces the prerequisites for making well-founded decisions about
compensation for damages and for licensing and protection hunting.
• Respect for knowledge, business activity and non-profit work is perceived
as inadequate. Respect is also disadvantaged by the rigid control culture
that has been perceived to have developed as a result of management by
objectives combined with strict survey criteria.
• The integration of new knowledge is inadequate. The lack of a systematic
so-called adaptive learning leads to new solutions not being applied or
developed sufficiently.
• The system is perceived as unfair and closed. A review of how costs and
benefits are distributed is requested by the actors, both in terms of direct
costs, but also transaction costs, i.e. costs associated with consultation and
collaboration. It is also unclear how the actors are allowed to participate
in the development of the system.
The actors highlight a number of proposals on how trust can be strengthened.
It is the basis for improvements that can also be accepted by most of the
respondents:
• Develop a systematic quality assurance work with a focus on dialogue and
stakeholder collaboration, for example within the framework of Dialogue
for Nature Conservation.
Work together to produce a clear division of roles that describes who
does what, when and why within the entire survey chain, with the aim
of increasing the predictability for everyone involved.
• Create incentives and structures for adaptive management within the
entire survey chain at all levels.
• Produce a review of how costs and benefits are distributed to all actors.
It should include direct costs and transaction costs, i.e. costs associated
with consultation and collaboration.
• Develop and streamline survey methods, preferably with new technology
such as DNA, cameras and drones. Expand the collaboration with
research projects such as ScandCam.
• Give feedback directly to the interest organizations and the public’s
observations to increase the motivation to report.
• Develop a regulatory framework for the years where there is no survey
data (e.g. due to lack of snow), for example through a routine for projecting the number of animals based on trend analysis.
• Reduce remote control, NV’s role should be more coordinating than
controlling.
• Encourage knowledge integration (or so-called collective intelligence) by
coordinating knowledge, scientific as well as local and traditional knowledge, so that it benefits the entire system.
• Review how resources are distributed and prioritized in the system.
... However, this man, at risk of losing his home, also assured me how much his community needed this mine in order to 19 have a future. While the planned mine could justifiably be described in the case of the Saami herder as extractive violence (Sehlin MacNeil, 2017), it simultaneously symbolised hope for a better future for the municipality. In the middle of this dualistic dynamic around the planned project, the inhabitants of the municipality are each pursuing forms of well-being, all the while trying to live well as members of their communities. ...
... In addition, some studies address the broader phenomenon of social non-acceptance of mining (Badera, 2014). In Fennoscandian context, the conflict perspective and a focus on power relations stands out in recent studies on the relationships between reindeer herding and mining (see Johnsen, 2016;Lawrence & Larsen, 2017;Sehlin MacNeil, 2015;Sehlin MacNeil, 2017) and between mining and the tourism industry (Lyytimäki & Peltonen, 2016;Similä & Jokinen, 2018). ...
This dissertation argues for an understanding of land use negotiations in terms of overlapping projects of striving for the good life in northern Fennoscandia. The dynamics of coexistence between reindeer herding, the extractive industries and nature-based tourism are examined in the Torne River Valley area, of the Swedish-Finnish border region. Here, the collision of competing livelihoods offers a passageway to examine the differing understandings of how to be well and live well in the North. The study is based on ethnographic research methods, mainly semi-structured interviewing and participant observation, and has a long-term perspective on issues around land use. The dissertation first discusses the various ways in which the impacts of mining and reindeer herding on the well-being of local communities can be understood. Then, the study examines the interplay between trying to live well as part of one’s community while struggling to secure the continuity of one’s livelihood in the decision making of a specific livelihood group during local land use negotiations. Finally, the influence of various cultural conceptions, future visions and longstanding cultural dreams concerning mining and the North on current land use disputes over mining in northern Fennoscandia is scrutinised. An approach that takes into consideration the good life and its pursuit is a step towards a holistic understanding of the behaviour and motivations of residents in local communities during land use negotiations and alleviating the current polarisation of the discussions around mining.
... 8). Such contexts for example include Sámi reindeer herding communities resisting exploration and mining in Northern Sweden (Sehlin MacNeil, 2017;MacPhail et al., 2022). Impacts are here understood as local actors' and individuals' experiences of a broader range of intended, or unintended, impacts of interventions on individual, family, community, and, to some extent, society levels (see Vanclay, 2002Vanclay, , 2003Vanclay et al., 2015). ...
This study explores factors affecting local actors' and citizens' attitudes to mineral exploration, and how attitudes to exploration relates to those of mining. The concept Social License to Explore (SLE), originating from Social License to Operate (SLO), is used to address the relationship between exploration companies and affected local communities. The study focuses on attitudes in three municipalities in northern Sweden and Finland and combines qualitative and quantitative methods. The results show that local attitudes to mineral exploration and mining correlate strongly and are intimately linked. Perceptions of impacts, the permit process, and trust in government and company affect local attitudes, but company performance seems to be most important where trust was not established. We argue that values about nature, economy, and value-based development preferences , are central as they shape local attitudes and perceptions of impacts and process. While company conduct and community engagement are within the control of companies, local values and development preferences are largely outside of their control. However, insights about contextual conditions shaping attitudes and values can be generalized and help companies make more informed decisions. Responsible target selection is a strategy within the control of the company which can help avoid intractable and costly conflicts.
... Structural and cultural violence is well documented in the context of Indigenous Sámi and Indigenous Australian people subjected to systemic oppression (Össbo, 2021;Sehlin MacNeil, 2017). Furthermore, Indigenous Sámi and Indigenous Australian people experience systemic violence in educational institutions in Australia and Sweden within governance and leadership, in teaching and research (Burt & Gunstone, 2018;Morgan, 2003), and through First Nations epistemologies and ontologies being routinely dismissed and ridiculed as having no value (Atkinson, 2002;Norlin, 2017) 5 . ...
Social justice is part of higher education discourse within university mission statements, graduate qualities and university rhetoric globally (Connell in Higher education, pedagogy and social justice. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 23–36, 2019; Wilson-Strydom in High Educ 69(1):143–155, 2015). In Australia, this focus includes re-centring Indigenous Australian epistemologies and ontologies from the subjugated margins in academia (Moreton-Robinson in Cult Stud Rev 15:61–79, 2009; Nakata in Aust J Indig Educ 36:7–14, 2007) and in Sweden, building an understanding of intergenerational traumas of school-based systemic violence against Indigenous Sámi (Atkinson in Trauma trails, recreating song lines: the transgenerational effects of trauma in Indigenous Australia. Spinifex Press, 2002; Norlin in Samerna och Svenska kyrkan: Underlag för kyrkligt försoningsarbete. Gidlunds förlag, Möklinta, 2017). This chapter highlights opportunities for upward socio-economic mobility for First Nations peoples through surpassing the deficit thinking still prevalent among invader-coloniser populations. Included in this we reference the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals SDG 4: Quality Education and SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities (United Nations in Sustainable development goals, 2021) and its potential to influence educational discourses in teaching practice and curriculum construction in Australia and Sweden. Indigenous Standpoint Theory (IST) and Critical Race Pedagogy (CRP) are utilised as critical frameworks for unpacking the historical background of racial oppression, understanding the complexities of Indigeneity and post-colonising constructs and disrupting whiteness embedded in mono-cultural education. As practicing educators, we have sought in this chapter, to critically explore how Indigenous Knowledges and culturally responsive pedagogies are disrupting ethnocentric ontologies within the university sector through an emergent undisciplined strategy.
... That is, to respond to the encounter based on the agenda of the design project while also following specific engagement methods rooted in colonizing behaviors of the anthropological tradition. Extractivism, a common relation in colonizing oppression (Dei & Lordan, 2016;Sehlin MacNeil, 2017) opposes the idea of relationality as, instead of creating opportunities for all participants in an encounter to engage with the specificities of each other and exchange as seems suitable, implies a unidirectional relation where a pre-established agenda on one side dictates the extraction of information from the other side to employ for their purposes. From this perspective, designers approach an encounter with a specific intention and stance while non-designers come in with less of an understanding of what they are getting into, why, and how it will be used. ...
... Attempts to stop development projects on reindeer herding lands are faced with resistance (e.g. Larsen et al. 2017;Sehlin MacNeil 2017) and have led to open questioning of the reindeer herding right, increased hate speech, crimes and other expressions of racism towards the Sámi (Kroik & Hellzen 2011). Disempowerment caused by the cumulative effects of decreasing profitability, enduring conflicts and limited opportunity to improve the situation has also resulted in a situation of reduced psycho-social health, such as higher than average suicidal thoughts among reindeer herders (Kaiser et al. 2010;Stoor 2016). ...
In Sápmi and beyond, the practice of reindeer herding is under increasing pressure from competing for land use, large carnivores and climate change. The governing systems are, however, ill-equipped and unable to address resulting cumulative and interacting impacts. This has led to a difficult situation for reindeer herding due to the loss of land, functionality and flexibility, and proves a challenge for the Nordic states as the legitimacy of reindeer husbandry governance is increasingly contested. Addressing this challenge, this chapter unpacks the discursive and political dimensions of reindeer husbandry governance in Sweden, Norway and Finland. Guided by three broad questions: i) governing what, ii) governing how and iii) governing for and by whom, it explores how problem representations are constructed, handled and contested. The analysis shows that state-led governance was never in fact constructed to address herders’ concerns, but was, and remains, based on the states’ and competing land uses’ problem representations. The chapter, therefore, concludes by identifying the need to revisit the present understanding of “problems”, “solutions” and “visions” in reindeer husbandry governance. A key task will be to re-image, or actively seek to change the discursive construction of, reindeer herding as a system-to-be-governed and attune it to the perspectives of the herders.
... Diverse opinions on many issues were expressed, but most participants stress that mining needs to be done respectfully-in a good way-by proper involvement of the local and First Nation population, values and protocols, including care for the environment and remediation upon mine closure. The systemic issues caused by mining colonialism or extractive imperialism/violence (Petras and Veltmeyer 2014;Sehlin MacNeil 2017) also need to be addressed-from individual behaviour modification to a change in mining companies' (speech) culture, to institutional change within authorities such as the police and social services. Systemic inequalities, rooted deeply within governance, health care and educational institutions, call for more than just reform; they also call for decolonizing state structures and indigenizing community life-and for respecting rights and working towards justice on a multitude of scales. ...
... 42 During this time Sámi have also been subjected to painful intrusions such as race biology, dislocation, forced conversion to Christianity, and a continuous loss of their traditional lands due to extractive activities and, more currently, climate change. 43 Despite this, Sámi people have repeatedly managed to mobilize and use diplomatic measures to be heard in a number of different arenas. ...
Embedded with pre-existing meaning and a complex set of core principles and practices, “diplomacy” is a term familiar to most. Simply put, diplomacy is the established methods of influencing the decisions and behavior of foreign governments and peoples through dialogue, negotiation, and other measures to resolve conflict and maintain peace.1 In this article, we review the literature pertaining to the concept of diplomacy, focusing primarily on the lesser recognized diplomacies of First Peoples2 in Australia and Sweden. Through the telling of three significant events, historical and contemporary, drawn from many possible examples of the two nations, we demonstrate that Indigenous diplomacies are not new but rather newly recognized.3 We argue for the utilization of Indigenous diplomatic practices to realize self- determining research with, and by, First Peoples. In doing so, centuries of colonization that have resulted in power imbalances, which sought to assimilate and benefit settler/colonizer privilege through its governing institutions, may be disrupted and transformed.4 According to the literature search undertaken, this is an approach to Indigenous research that has received scant attention. Our discussion is guided by two key questions. First, can research informed by Indigenous diplomatic practices disrupt assimilationist research agendas set predominantly by society’s governing institutions? Second, can recognition of Indigenous diplomatic principles and practices facilitate self-determining research? We draw on our experiences as Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers to suggest that the enactment of Indigenous diplomatic practices when undertaking our research ‘proper ways’ with First Peoples, according to Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, has facilitated its success.
... Extraktivt våld definieras som en form av direkt våld (Sehlin MacNeil 2017). Detta kan förstås i en kontext tillsammans med andra former av våld, exempelvis kulturellt och strukturellt våld (Galtung 1990;1969). ...
Inledning Denna artikel är en omarbetad version av en presentation som hölls av författarna vid konferensen La Responsabilité de Protéger. Écologie et Dignité (The responsibility to protect. Ecology and dignity) vid Université Laval i Quebec i början av oktober 2017. Kristina Sehlin MacNeil och Niila Inga lärde känna varandra som forskare och forskningsdeltagare under Kristinas avhand-lingsarbete, vilket avslutades i februari 2017. De har sedan dess inbjudits att tala tillsammans vid en rad olika konferenser. Detta är deras första gemensamma publikation, samt den första arti-keln på svenska som behandlar Sehlin MacNeils resultat från hennes avhandling Extractive Violence on Indigeneous Country (2017), där hon med utgång i begreppet "Extraktivt våld" disku-terar om urfolks perspektiv på marken och på kopplingen mellan människa och mark.
... The vast majority of Sami in Sweden are not members of a reindeer husbandry district. In this context, it should be noted that the parties in favor of revising the electoral roll represent reindeer husbandry districts and family-based companies that already struggle to make ends meet, and they feel pressured by ongoing land-use conflicts and competition over resources (Sehlin MacNeil 2017). Thus, restricting electoral enrollment can be seen as a way for them to prevent further potential competition and conflict over resources and land in the future. ...
In contrast to situations in most other countries, Indigenous land rights in Sweden are tied to a specific livelihood—reindeer husbandry. Consequently, Sami culture is intimately connected to it. Currently, Sami who are not involved in reindeer husbandry use genealogy and attachment to place to signal Sami belonging and claim Sami identity. This paper explores the relationship between Sami genealogy and attachment to place before the reindeer grazing laws of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I show that within local Sami communities the land representing home was part of family history and identity while using historical archive material, narratives, and storytelling. State projects in the late 19th century challenged the links between family and land by confining Sami land title to reindeer husbandry, thereby constructing a notion of Sami as reindeer herders. The idea has restricted families and individuals from developing their culture and livelihoods as Sami. The construct continues to cause conflicts between Sami and between Sami and other members of local communities. Nevertheless, Sami today continue to evoke their connections to kinship and place, regardless of livelihood.
... Following initial work by the first author, the authors undertook four days of in-country preparation to make the concepts more relevant to PNG and accessible to communities 13 . The factors were then presented in Tok Pisin 14 and English, along with accompanying illustrations to six communities affected by the proposed Wafi-Golpu mine as part of a yarning methodology (Bessarab and Ng'andu, 2010;Sehlin MacNeil, 2017;Yunkaporta & Kirby, 2011), which shares much in common with the tok stori approach that is part of Melanesian life (Sanga et al., 2018;Stead, 2013). The illustrations 15 , (figures shown in relevant sections below) presented on A3 size pages, provided an accessible starting point, helping to sponsor involvement and discussion, but became less important as participation increased throughout each session. ...
Inspired by questions from local communities about the potential impacts of large-scale extractive activities, we used others’ experience to identify and illustrate intentional and immanent impacts from extractive led devel- opment (ELD). Recognising the capitalist driver of global extraction and needing to capture the harsh, but often obscured reality of local experience, we turned to theories, applications and experience of dispossession. Based on Holden, Nadeau and Jacobson’s (2011) application of Harvey’s (2003) theory of accumulation by dis- possession (AbD) in the Philippines, we identified eleven separate but interrelated and overlapping factors of extractive dispossession which provide the specific detail required to identify and understand extractive impacts. These were then discussed and tested with communities potentially impacted by the proposed Wafi-Golpu mine in the Morobe province of Papua New Guinea. Participant responses indicated the value and utility of this recipient-view perspective of extractive impact in an interactive and iterative approach that informed com- munities about potential impacts and documented their concerns with process and outcome at Wafi-Golpu - which is already a site of multiple dispossessions. The research outcome is a practical heuristic with specific factors that enhances our understanding of potential impacts from ELD and can assist in applying concepts of dispossession and accumulation to development impacts.
... The sessions started with a brief explanation of the purpose of our visit (based on requests and engagements from previous years) where we sought and obtained consent. After first checking whether the term gutpla sindaun was understood, meaningful and appropriate, initial conversations and information sharing kick-started a yarning methodology which was selected for being: respectful; culturally appropriate; supportive and able to accommodate different levels of formal education; and suited to action research into extractive conflicts (Bessarab and Ng'andu, 2010;Sehlin MacNeil, 2017;Yunkaporta and Kirby, 2011). The yarns, with frequent tangents and non-sequential discussions, started with participant reflections on human flourishing in their community (Leeson et al., 2016;Yap and Yu, 2016). ...
The gap between the rhetoric and reality of extractive-led development (ELD) looms large over the dominant but flawed discourse of mining for development. Seeking to better understand outcomes from ELD we apply a human flourishing perspective, exploring yet-to-be-experienced impacts in a potentially inflammatory political process. This action research is designed to assist communities respond to the proposed, but yet to be approved Wafi-Golpu project in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. The research exchange documents with a clear voice community concerns about: a lack of information; anxiety about intentional and immanent impacts; fundamentally different conceptualisations of what human flourishing is; a lack of development, services and facilities; unrealistic expectations; and, most powerfully, an undermining of individual and collective agency. We find that despite forty years of waiting for mining, the consent process to date is unjust, flawed and inadequate, de-legitimising any future claims to informed consent. While the immediate practical, on-ground outcomes of this action-research for the communities has been positive, longer term outcomes are yet to be determined. The concept of human flourishing offers a useful and insightful perspective that can inform communities, governments, proponents and researchers alike about the potential impacts of ELD on human well-being.
This chapter explores how the Swedish state justifies its extractive bargains with Indigenous Sámi reindeer herding communities (RHCs). The conflict over the Kallak/Gállok mine project in northern Sweden serves as an example. The chapter explores the logic underlying the Swedish state’s contemporary extractive bargaining strategies in light of a policy style moulded by historical social democratic politics. A corporatist and consensus-oriented policy style and a productivist approach assuming win-wins between social rights, equality and economic growth permeated historical Swedish bargains. Currently, Sweden justifies its bargains with climate benefits, but the former social democratic legacy created path dependencies which continue to shape extractive bargains today. While this approach has served the needs of the industry, the state and the working class, it severely compromises the needs of Indigenous Sámi RHCs. Applied in a pro-extractivist political economy with little concern for Indigenous rights, it maintains and reinforces social injustices.
For over one hundred years, hydropower expansion has taken place in Sápmi, the land of the Indigenous Sámi people in Northern Fenno-Scandia and the Kola Peninsula. In modern energy company narratives, certain parts of history remain unmentioned. Among these are the narratives belonging to Sámi people who were negatively impacted by hydropower expansion. Thus, the aim of this article is to analyse three state-owned energy companies’ narratives about their hydropower expansion in Sápmi and compare them with challenging voices or counter-narratives. The sources used are the companies’ websites and the official documents and material found there, as well as other documentary sources, literature, and research spanning a time period of 1910 to 2021. The overall questions are: To what extent and in what ways are Sámi experiences regarding hydropower expansion part of the companies’ narratives. This study uses counter-narrative and narrative justice as conceptual framework and shows that the full impact that hydropower expansion has had on Sámi people’s situations is insufficiently communicated in the companies’ narratives. Instead, the companies mainly construct their narratives as hydropower expansion in Sápmi being a phenomenon located in history without connection to ongoing consequences on Sámi lands and lives.
This article explores Southern Saami reindeer herders’ experiences and contestations over state consultation and corporate dialogue during a conflict over the Øyfjellet wind energy project in Norway. Informed by a committed research approach and juxtaposition with findings from Indigenous peoples' territorial struggles in Latin-America, the article provides critical perspectives on governance practices in a Nordic-Saami green colonial context. The research draws on ethnography from a consultation meeting between Jillen Njaarke, the impacted reindeer herding community, and state authorities, as well as diverse written material. The study suggests that the state- and corporate-led “dialogues” displaced the root cause of the conflict, revealed epistemic miscommunication, and perpetuated relations of domination which limited emancipatory effects for Jillen Njaarke. The premises and discourses underpinning the “dialogues” further reproduced racist notions which devalue ancestral Saami reindeer herding knowledges, practices, and landscape relations. These findings challenge dialogue as prescription of good governance and conflict resolution in a context where democracy and compliance with Indigenous peoples’ rights are perceived as high.
This book presents perspectives about Indigenous peoples experience of climate change. It argues that Indigenous voices and adaptation to climate change are providing examples of millennia old deployment of Indigenous knowledge to new days. Anchored by an array of snapshot case studies from across the world, this book is co-authored by two non Indigenous and three Indigenous authors, who seek to offer some ideas around how we engage with each other to manage climate impacts.
This chapter provides an overview of the factors that drive Indigenous experience with climate change to explain why it matters. We provide examples of the wide range of impacts that Indigenous peoples are experiencing, including impacts on Indigenous knowledge, spirituality and culture, health and socio-economic circumstances.
Indigenous peoples, as innovators and leaders of climate adaptation in their territories, have applied “old ways to new days”, both as a process, as well as in practice. Western scientists and policy makers need to work together effectively with Indigenous peoples to not only respond to climate change both on their territories and places they live. Further, in order for Indigenous knowledge to more broadly contribute to adaptation per se, conventional characterisations of vulnerability and resilience must be thrown off in favour of Indigenous survival, agency and world views. Governance spaces need to be created, on equitable terms, for Indigenous peoples to participate in and contribute to adaptation policy and decision making.
Indigenous peoples, despite being affected by climate change, are responding in diverse ways to implement various forms of adaptation. These adaptations build on ages old cultural knowledge and a historical tradition of responding to change. In this chapter, a range of these adaptations are presented, and we argue that Indigenous adaptation requires tailored and specific actions suitable to culturally identified places and peoples, both old and new. Further, we argue that Indigenous adaptation is not just a response to climate change but is part of wider responses engineered to also address the impacts of colonisation and other threats to Indigenous sovereignty. Far from being passive victims, Indigenous peoples are active in asserting their rights to a voice about how to address climate change, and as such we argue that old ways are the founding step for the cultivation of adaptations to meet socio-ecological and cultural responsibilities in these new days .
Climate change affects Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) around the world, including ethnic minorities in China who experience impacts on their agricultural, animal husbandry, hunting and gathering practices: their main source of livelihood. At the same time, IPLCs have rich traditional knowledge related to climate and its disasters. This chapter presents an exploration of the role of traditional knowledge for livelihood maintenance and climate adaptation for ethnic minorities in China. Ethnic minorities not only observe and perceive climate change but are also actively adapting to the impact of climate change on their traditional livelihoods, via the deployment of their knowledge. This chapter explores how traditional knowledge can improve understanding of the influence of climate change to livelihoods and provide ideas for the development of equitable and effective plans to adapt to climate change. Using their traditional knowledge, ethnic minorities in China have been building contemporary community-based plans that are suitable for each individual geographical location.
In this chapter, the experience of Indigenous peoples in Australia is explored, and the ways in which they have responded to the challenge of climate change. A wide range of adaptation mechanisms have been implemented which are nonetheless, as in the United States, inextricably connected to an ongoing legacy of colonial invasion. Indigenous adaptation in Australia is more than responding to climate change, but an ever-continuing adaptation to colonial history. The essential role of communications is explored.
This paper examines ongoing challenges facing Indigenous peoples and their heritage, the consequences of inadequate heritage protection, and new initiatives that counter this. Indigenous scholars, tribal leaders, and others have done much to educate outsiders as to their heritage values and ways of life. My goal is to identify areas where governments, industry, the public, and even academic researchers have failed to understand this. I first examine seven significant challenges: 1) heritage site destruction and disturbance; 2) repatriation of ancestral remains; 3) unauthorised study of ancestral remains; 4) restrictions on access to or protection of sacred places; 5) dismissal of oral histories and traditional knowledge; 6) cultural appropriation and commodification; and 7) limited consultation or participation in heritage management. I then review six areas where informed and innovative actions are providing effective, respectful, and responsible heritage protection therein: 1) Indigenous participation, decision making and benefits flow; 2) Indigenous intellectual property; 3) research ethics; 4) new applications of archaeological methods; 5) policy development and implementation; and 6) corporate responsibility, public outreach and education.
Resource extraction is an old tradition in the Arctic region and shows a variable historical pattern although with a long-term upward trend that has accelerated in recent decades. This development stands in a complicated relationship to local Arctic communities. They are rarely the prime drivers of the growth in extraction industries. Nonetheless, some of them depend on resource extraction for their very existence while others suffer from extraction, some badly. In this Chapter I will articulate some of the background thinking as we put together a very large team of 15 partner universities/institutes and some 50 scholars, scientists and practitioners in REXSAC to research sustainability and resource extraction in the context of a rapidly changing Arctic with increased vulnerability and mounting outside geopolitical interest. I will present our approaches to theorizing about resource extraction (resources as socially defined) and the formation of sustainability, and I will draw on some of our results so far. I will also present our work to critically engage with policy concepts from the recent neo-liberal past, such as sustainability, assessments, or ‘best practice’.
The dissertation accounts for construction of place in mining communities as they undergo a major urban transformation. In the 2010s, urban centres in the northern Sweden mining communities of Gällivare and Kiruna entered a new execution phase of a large-scale transformation precipitated by ground subsidence caused by mining activities, a transformation that continues. The ambition to make the transition socially sustainable and contribute to more attractive communities resulted in research projects focused on these aspects.
The aim of this dissertation is to describe and analyse how place is constructed in established mining communities in transition through the following research questions: How is place constructed in dialogues on social sustainability and attractiveness? How do people of different age groups, professions and gender construct place in established mining communities in transition? What are the possibilities and limitations of different research methods in relation to including residents’ perspectives in the transformation process? The overall theoretical standpoint of this dissertation is that place is socially constructed: place is made by people discussing and describing it, by discourses that are produced, reproduced and challenged in social groups beyond individual standpoints. Residents’ thoughts and ideas about place are an important part of what the communities are, were and will become, along with their reflexive relationship with their place of residence and thoughts on their own and other peoples’ future in the respective communities (See Lefebvre, 1991, Halegua, 2020). By reflexive relationship with place I am referring to actions where residents consider risk, think about their future, define what makes their life more meaningful and reflect upon changes in their environment; local community is one of the levels of these thoughts, attitudes and feelings.
Five studies were conducted to investigate construction of place in the transiting mining communities of Kiruna and Gällivare using mixed methods: participatory action research in Living Labs, statistical logistics regression analysis, GIS 3D visualisation. This included an analytical review of research on established mining communities, a 3D visualisation of social issues in Gällivare, an analysis of Living Labs with residents of Gällivare and Kiruna as well as a group of commuters to Gällivare, a comparative study of three co-creative processes in Kiruna and a statistical analysis of construction of place in Kiruna over time.
The results show that residents, while participating in dialogues on social sustainability and attractiveness, construct the transient communities through contradictory storylines. Bearing themes in construction of place were aggregated through the storylines that residents constructed and reproduced, expressed different attitudes towards and referenced. The established storylines with a long history, such as model community, a town constructed as a new establishment planned to be modern and inclusive; nature and the town, the theme of beautiful natural surroundings valued by residents and visitors, including the mountains, forest, rivers and lakes; big city elsewhere, a big city used in the construction of Kiruna and Gällivare to show what those places are not, as a counterpoint; the secure small town, the storyline of knowing “everyone”, spontaneously meeting, helping each other, were all used to re-establish the sense of stability and reframe the new environment by connecting it to the construction of the communities’ past. The storyline, the conditionally inclusive town, was used to question the character of and conditions for inclusion in the local interconnected context. The storylines of hope of a more inclusive and sustainable future and broken promises of a faster transformation, resulting in bigger changes, were used to process the change to imagined futures of place.
There were certain patterns in how people of different age groups, professions and gender construct place in transiting communities. The main difference in the way men and women constructed Gällivare, according to 3D visualisation analysis, was that women were less content than men with the built environment, following similar geographical patterns. Construction of Kiruna as a place to live (or leave) over time has shown that while blue-collar workers were less prone than white-collar workers to consider leaving in 2011, there were no significant differences between social classes in 2016 in that regard. Generational patterns were similar - the younger the respondent, the more prone he or she is to consider leaving - but the gap between the youngest respondents and all other respondents has grown. The effect of social bonds that inhibit the will to move went from insignificant to visible for men and from significant to stronger for women. The hope of a transformed Kiruna, so ubiquitous in 2011, was much less pronounced in 2016.
Different research methods had different potential in terms of the potential to understand construction of place and were thus included in the planning process: the statistical method gave representative patterns of factors behind whether residents consider leaving and how the patterns changed over time, but this method was limited in its ability to generate an understanding of the contextual meaning of those patterns, Living Labs provided the opportunity to see how place is constructed in dialogues but was limited in its ability to generate an understanding of preferences and individual standpoints, 3D visualisation provided spatial patterns beyond statistics and means for discussion and communication of those patterns with a broad variety of actors but had limited potential for their interpretation.
Many traditional pastoralist systems are greatly impacted by cumulative encroachments of other land users and by climate change. Understanding land degradation and the adaptive capacity of people who are dependent on the rangelands is an urgent priority for many areas in the world. In this research we explore how changing environmental conditions affect herding strategies on winter pastures and the role of indigenous and local traditional knowledge (ILK) in Sami reindeer husbandry. Our results indicate that traditional Sami reindeer herding strategies are still practiced, but that rapidly changing environmental circumstances are forcing herders into uncharted territories where these traditional strategies and the transmission of knowledge between generations may be of limited use. For example, rotational grazing is no longer possible as all pastures are being used, and changes in climate result in unpredictable weather patterns unknown to earlier generations.
The Social License to Operate (SLO) continues to influence industry, government, and academia on issues of resource development, particularly mining. But it risks becoming a term that includes all types of company activity aimed at gaining public support. To delimit the term, we look at the malleability of the SLO in a highly-regulated context: Sweden. Comparing the academic literature on the SLO at the global level and in the Swedish context, we assess the usefulness of the term across three themes: institutions, corporate-community engagement, and sustainability. Through this review, we argue that the SLO is best understood as a tool and an indicator. A tool to address significant problems and issues and an indicator of deficiencies in the existing institutional framework
The Barents Sea Region (BaSR) is a dynamic and complex region that acts as a meeting place for both states and peoples. Using a human security lens, this chapter reveals some of the stories of the people of the BaSR as a home to multiple ethnicities and nationalities, to large cities and small communities. The region’s relevance to current geopolitics is significant, where Norway, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), borders the Russian Federation. This geopolitical relevance, though important, does not define the region or relations among peoples. Indeed, the region is also well known for very good relations between Russian and Norwegian peoples from the times of the Pomor trade to the present. Overlapping these dynamics are the continuous struggles of Indigenous peoples to maintain and develop their own societies and political institutions. The Sámi people have experienced various forms of colonization on both the Norwegian and Russian sides of the borders. Over time, Sámi rights have increased, as has access to governance structures, though to different degrees depending on Russian or Norwegian state policies. Intertwined within these relations of power between states, and between states and peoples, is the extensive natural resource wealth of the region from fisheries to oil and gas. The combination of all of these dynamics make the region unique to the Arctic setting.
This study examines use of digital transferred knowledge within husbandry based on interviews and literature studies. Traditional knowledge is the base of husbandry. In husbandry today, this knowledge is combined with the digitally transferred knowledge through the use of the global positioning system collar. Husbandry never operates in isolation from other actors but interacts and is affected by multiple stakeholders and by regulatory practices regulations. The digital data can, besides being used in everyday practice, also be incorporated in reindeer husbandry plans. Reindeer husbandry plans is a tool for obtaining information of land use in husbandry in communication with other land users, but it is also a tool for operational reindeer management for the communities. The reindeer use of grazing land can through the data from the global positioning system collar create “hard facts” used for aspirations of power in discussions over land use.
Few industries are surrounded with such drama as mining. The extractive sector is a highly contested industry that triggers strong emotional responses. Simultaneously, dreams of prosperity and of a better future have been attached to mining ventures throughout history. Nevertheless, mining is predominantly presented as a ‘rational’ space. I argue that a more comprehensive understanding is needed on the influence of what I call beyond-the-rational on modern mining conflicts. This approach is particularly relevant when examining the extractive industries in northern Fennoscandia due to various Utopian constructs having been attached to the North for centuries. Thus, current mining disputes are embedded in broader cultural dreams and they need to be examined with a long-term perspective. In this article, I discuss how being aware of the role dreams play in mining enables the opening of constructive dialogue between the opposition and proponents of mining projects and is a step towards creating more sustainable communities. Finally, I suggest, that the existence of two contrary cultural visions, of wilderness and of upcoming prosperity, is one reason behind the polarisation of discussions around northern mining projects.
Asymmetrical conflicts and power relations between extractive industries and
Indigenous groups often have devastating consequences for Indigenous peoples.
Many Indigenous groups are struggling to maintain their lands as Indigenous
perspectives on connection to Country are frequently undervalued or dismissed in
favour of extractivist ideologies. While this conflicted interface has been researched
in various parts of the world, studies exploring conflicts and power relations with
extractive industries from Indigenous perspectives are few.
This thesis is an international comparison aiming to illuminate situations of
conflict and asymmetrical power relations caused by extractivism on Indigenous
lands from new viewpoints. By drawing on two single case studies, the situations for
Laevas reindeer herding Sami community in northern Sweden and Adnyamathanha
Traditional Owners in South Australia are compared and contrasted. Yarning (a form
of interviewing) is used as a method for data collection and in order to stay as true as
possible to the research participants’ own words a number of direct quotes are used.
The analysis employs peace researcher Johan Galtung’s concepts of cultural and
structural violence as analytical tools to further explore the participants’ experiences
of interactions with extractive industries and industrial proponents, including
governments. In addition, the thesis introduces the concept of extractive violence as a
complement to Galtung’s model. Extractive violence is defined as a form of direct
violence against people and/or animals and nature caused by extractivism, which
predominantly impacts peoples closely connected to land. The concepts of structural
and cultural violence are understood as unjust societal structures and racist and
discriminating attitudes respectively.
A number of main themes could be identified in the research participants’
narratives. However, the most prominent on both continents was connections to
Country and the threat that extractive violence posed to these connections.
The results show that although the expressions of cultural, structural and
extractive violence experienced by the two Indigenous communities varied, the
impacts were strikingly similar. Both communities identified extractive violence,
supported by structural and cultural violence, as threats to the continuation of their
societies and entire cultures. Furthermore, the results suggest that in order to
address violence against Indigenous peoples and achieve conflict transformation,
Indigenous and decolonising perspectives should be heard and taken into account.
Keywords: Aboriginal, Adnyamathanha, Australia, conflict, cultural violence,
extractive industries, extractive violence, Indigenous peoples, Laevas čearru, LKAB,
nuclear waste repository, Sami, structural violence, Sweden.
The book is a result of a Research Project "Árbediehtu: Sámi Traditional Knoweldge" conducted by Sámi allaskuvla /Sámi University of Applied Sciences, local Sámi communities and partners from the Costal Sámi, Lule Sámi , Northern Sámi , and Southern Sámi areas in the period 2008 - 2011.
Across the globe, community-oriented protected areas are increasingly recognised as an effective way to support the preservation and maintenance of the traditional biodiversity related knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities. We argue that guaranteed land security and the ability of indigenous and local peoples to exercise their own governance structures is central to the success of community-oriented protected area programs. In particular, we examine the conservation and community development outcomes of the Indigenous Protected Area program in Australia, which is based on the premise that indigenous landowners exercise effective control over environmental governance, including management plans, within their jurisdiction (whether customary or state-based or a combination of elements of both), and have effective control of access to their lands, waters and resources.
Key Words: community-oriented protected areas, Indigenous rights, conservation, Australia
The point of departure for this study is the official recognition by the Swedish government in 1977 of the Sami as an indigenous people. This recognition was typical for its time in an international perspective. The 1970s saw a shift in the global discourse on the status of indigenous people that included recognition as something else than “mere” minorities. In the 1980s this development took institutionalised form when the UN appointed a Working Group on Indigenous Populations and gave it the task of drafting a declaration on indigenous peoples’ rights. This process ended in 2007 when the General Assembly adopted the Declaration and thereby recognised that, in addition to the traditional rights of minorities, such as cultural, linguistic and religious rights, indigenous peoples also have the right of self-determination and special rights to land. The global discourse of indigenous peoples’ rights is further strengthened by ILO Convention no 169 from 1989. During the same period, the UN have developed the global discourse on minority rights through its Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities from 1992. The minority discourse has also been developed regionally through the European Council’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1993) and Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1995). This study has analysed how the official Swedish discourse of the status and rights of the Sami have developed from 1986-2005, i.e. from the year when the Sami Rights Commission (appointed by the government to inquire what the recognised status of the Sami as an indigenous people might mean in practice) produced its first report on the status of the Sami, and compared that to the international development during the same period. The conclusion is that Sweden, a country otherwise propagating human rights internationally, have trouble adapting to the developing global discourse on indigenous peoples’ rights. It has not ratified ILO Convention no 169 due to issues of land rights and has not taken steps to implement other parts of the convention, leaving the global discourse of indigenous peoples outside Swedish Sami politics. In contrast, Sweden has ratified the two minority conventions of the European Council and has based its minority politics (which includes the Sami) on the conventions. Sweden has thereby clearly adapted to international standards regarding national minorities. For the Sami, this means that in addition to unique, but very limited, historical rights to the use of land, that do not live up to the standards set by the global indigenous rights discourse, they also have national minority rights. Discursively, this put the Sami in a position of being a “minority de luxe” rather than an indigenous people in Sweden.
Keywords: Peace and development studies, Sami, Sweden, indigenous peoples, minorities, self-determination, human rights, international law, nationalism, ethnicity, discourse analysis.
The student, practitioner, and academic in the psychological arena may ' ask a very valid and practical question: Why another cross-cultural treatise dealing with Native American psychology? It seems that psychological literature dealing with some of the very complex issues of providing theoretical and practical guidance in this area already abounds. As we see it, the existing literature on the subject is sorely lacking in relevant theoretical constructions upon which to base a fundamental approach that actually has some efficacy in ameliorating some of the problems facing our community. After a combined three decades of graduate training, clinical practice, and research, we have had some revelations regarding the use of psychology and the politically correctly phrased cross-cultural approaches. Early on, we bega; to realize that much of the study of cross-cultural issues and the resultant literature primarily comprised an exercise that had to be validated by the rules of the academy, thus making it a neocolonial experience. It did not take a great revelation to discover that the people who made up the rules of this academy were predominantly white men. It follows that knowledge from a cross-cultural perspective must become a caricature of the culture in order for it to be validated as science or knowledge. Borrowing from the imagery of Frantz Fanon, the study of colonized peoples must take on a "lactification" or whitening in order for the knowledge to be palatable to the academy. The consequences of such cross-cultural production of knowledge have been ongoing epistemic colonialism within the discipline of psychology. For example, intelligence testing and sciencing based on eugenics are the root metaphors upon which modern theory and practice are based. From here, we do not need to look far for a critique of psychology particularly in its cross-cultural formation. Insofar as all the [Editor's note: This chapter has been adapted from their book Native American Post-Colonial Psychology, reprinted with permission from the State University of New York Press.] human sciences are founded on the Western philosophical tradition, that tradition itself contains the seeds of psychology's transformation. The "linguistic turn" uncovers our construction based on the binary opposites implicit in Western metaphysics, which in turn constructs all scientific discourse , including psychology. Rather than continuing the "will to power" of control over natural and human processes, new philosophical formulations herald a ·moral advancement while at the same time negating the teleological progress of history. Feminist studies, cultural studies, and literary criticism are prime examples of the way in which disciplines have been transformed via the incorporation of philosophical insight-much the same way as Freud reversed the value of the binary opposites of consciousness and unconsciousness. These transformations open the door for different/other models of healing, normalcy, and identity. The study of cross-cultural thought is a difficult endeavour at best; the outcome of cross-cultural study may be the depreciation of culture rather than its legitimate analysis from another viewpoint. The reality of doing cross-cultural investigation is that most of this analysis is performed through the inoculated gaze of a psychology whose discourse is founded on the premise of the universal subject-the subject of a historical project of emancipation via reason. As long as the language implies that the discourse is cross-cultural, we are perpetuating the notion that other cultures do not have their own valid and legitimate epistemological forms. "Cross-cultural" implies that there is a relative platform from which all observations are to be made, and the platform that remains in place in our neocolonial discipline is that of Western subjectivity. When Western subjectivity is imposed on colonized peoples, not only will the phenomenon under scrutiny evade the lens of positivism, but further hegemony will also be imposed on the community. In order for our discipline to lead the way toward a true integration, sincere work must be completed as we move toward a postcolonial paradigm. Put simply, a postcolonial paradigm would accept knowledge from differing cosmologies as valid in their own right, without them having to adhere to a separate cultural body for legitimacy. Frantz Fanon believed that the Third World should not define itself in terms of European values. Instead, Fanon thought, everything needed to be reformed and thought anew, and, if colonized peoples were not willing to do this, then they should leave the destiny of their communities to the Western European mind-set. The year 1992 marked an important anniversary of the onset of colonialism in the New World. In keeping with the spirit of our brother Fanon, thinkers from the Third and Fourth Worlds must create knowledge that is not only new but also liberating and healing. The past 500 years have been devastating to our communities; the effects of this systematic genocide are currently being felt by our people. The Duran, B. and E. Duran (2000). "Applied postcolonial clinical and research strategies." in Battiste, M. Editor, Reclaiming indigenous voice and vision. Vancouver, UBC Press. pp 86-100.
Research related to indigenous peoples in Sweden and elsewhere has a history marked by discriminatory practice and unequal research processes. Sweden has still not been very visible in terms of openly debating, developing and implementing ethical strategies specifically suited for indigenous research. The present study explores how research ethics is discussed among scholars within the Sami research field in contemporary Sweden. Fifty-six research proposals deriving from eight different research institutions and 160 individual researchers are analyzed, discovering how scholars relate to research ethics when planning for new research projects related to the indigenous Sami. The results demonstrate that ethical guidelines for research are often referred to, but that a common view on what guidelines to use is lacking, leading to a notable variety between different researchers. Ethical discussions are present in the vast majority of the proposals, however there are notable differences between the theories around how to proceed in a culturally safe, ethical manner, and the proposed methods that are to be used to implement theory in practice. In conclusion, there exists a great uncertainty among scholars on where to seek ethical guidance, how to relate to current legislation around research ethics and at the same time act ethically in a culturally appropriate manner. This uncertainty leads to questioning whether discussions of ethics are relevant in the first place, what they are supposed to include, how they are meant to be undertaken and what consequences can be expected from the presence or absence of ethics in indigenous research.
This paper provides an overview of the Australian Indigenous higher education sector commencing from its development in the early 1970s to the present. It outlines how the first Indigenous higher education support program was developed, the reasons behind the development, and how and why it has been replicated across the Australian higher education sector. The whole process over the past 30 years of formal Indigenous participation within the higher education sector has been a very difficult process, despite the major gains. On reflection, I have come to believe that all the trials and tribulations have revolved around issues of “cultural safety”, but we have never named it as such. I believe that it is time that we formally named it as a genre in its own right within the education sector. We need to extend it from our psyches and put it out there to be developed, discussed, debated and evaluated. This is what is beginning to take place within Indigenous health - so why not Indigenous education?
Indigenous peoples have gained considerable agency in shaping decisions regarding resource development on their traditional lands. This growing agency is reflected in the emergence of the right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) when Indigenous rights may be adversely affected by major resource development projects. While many governments remain non-committal toward FPIC, corporate actors are more proactive at engaging with Indigenous peoples in seeking their consent to resource extraction projects through negotiated Impact and Benefit Agreements. Focusing on the Canadian context, this article discusses the roots and implications of a pro- ponent-driven model for seeking Indigenous consent to natural resource extraction on their traditional lands. Building on two case studies, the paper argues that negotiated consent through IBAs offers a truncated version of FPIC from the perspective of the communities involved. The deliberative ethic at the core of FPIC is often undermined in the negotiation process associated with proponent-led IBAs.
The rights afforded to Indigenous Australians under the Native Title Act 1993 (NTA) are very limited and allow for undue coercion by corporate interests, contrary to the claims of many prominent authors in this field. Unlike the Commonwealths first land rights law, Aboriginal Lands Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA), the NTA does not offer a right of veto to Aboriginal parties; instead, they have a right to negotiate with developers, which has in practice meant very little leverage in negotiations for native title parties. And unlike ALRA, developers can deal with any Indigenous corporation, rather than land councils. These two factors have encouraged opportunistic conduct by some developers and led to vexatious litigation designed to break the resistance of native title parties, as demonstrated by the experience of Aboriginal corporations in the iron ore-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia.
This thesis applies certain fundamental principles derived from communications theory and systems analysis and developed by Gregory Bateson and others to a discussion of changes in reindeer-herd management. The following important questions are discussed.
What are the determinants which have been active in the progression from intensive to extensive herding? What were the herding effects of northem-Saami (Lapp) relocation in the early 1900s? What is rational herding, why and how have its principles developed?
These questions will be answered with regard to the historical development of one particular, mountain-Saami, herding unit, Tuorpon.
Part I presents a diachronic analysis of Tuorpon-herding changes. Part II broadens the context to encompass the essential features of Swedish reindeer-herding legislation. In Part III, an attempt is made to bring this material together to explain the variable resistance to and compliance with governmental, rational ideals in Tuorpon.
Essential to this study is the recognition of numerous, hierarchical, resource-consumer relationships, such as grazing/reindeer, reindeer/herders, herders/Saamish society and Saamish society /the Swedish State. Thus, the land available for herding largely determines
the size of the reindeer population, which in tum largely determines the size of the herder population and the extent to which this group can serve as a pillar of the Saamish minority etc. To survive, these relations must be in balance with each other. Certain patterns are uncovered in Swedish herding legislation as this search for balance continues.
In the context of opposition to, or absence of, ethical
engagement in Indigenous research, researchers are
morally obligated to make a stand that ensures their
engagement strategy and implementation plan uses
an approach based on positionality, participation,
mutual respect, and partnership. Whilst this may involve
new challenges for the researcher, such an initiative
maximises the likelihood of an empowering and culturally
safe process for vulnerable participants, including
inexperienced researchers. As two early career researchers,
we reflect on our experiences amidst some of the
challenges within Indigenous research. These challenges
include ethical, methodological and structural issues. The
main aims of this chapter are to advocate for practical
and philosophical reform of Indigenous research ethics
particularly in the context of decolonisation; ultimately
to maximise the benefits of research primarily for
community research participants, service providers, and
policy makers as opposed to primarily for the academy.
The authors’ experiential and theoretical knowledge
enables a critical understanding of the philosophical
underpinnings of a decolonising research approach and
how this guides the development of an appropriate ethics
protocol.
We acknowledge that research impacts on Indigenous
peoples’ lives, often in a negative or unintended manner,
and its governance varies dramatically according to
individual as well as institutional values that are steeped
in Western thought including colonialism. This paper
draws on scholarly theoretical knowledge of cultural
protocols and the governance of ethical processes from
international and local sources, as well as our own
experiences in cross-cultural communication to articulate
what we call a Decolonising Standpoint. We regard this
as a necessary addition to the implementation of an
Indigenous Standpoint in the context of research, which
has provided a highly credible philosophy and practice for
Indigenous researchers. We aim to create an additional
and quite distinct position that non-Indigenous
researchers can add to their repertoire of skills and
knowledge in the context of Indigenous research.
The Welcome to Country (WTC) ceremony and its twin, the Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners, have become prominent anti-racist rituals in the post-settler society of Australia. These rituals are rich in meaning. They are simultaneously emblems of colonisation and dispossession; of recognition and reconciliation; and a periodic focus of political posturing. This article analyses the multiple meanings of WTC ceremonies. In particular, I explore the politics of belonging elicited by WTC and Acknowledgement rituals. Drawing on ethnography of non-Indigenous people who work in Indigenous affairs, I argue that widespread enjoyment of these rituals among White anti-racists is explained because they paradoxically experience belonging through a sense of not belonging.
Det finns rasistiska strukturer i dagens Sverige- Men flertalet av oss blundar gärna för både vithetens privilegier och den diskriminering som icke-vita svenskar utsätts för. Vår fysiska kropp påverkar hur vi blir bemötta, betraktade och behandlade. Därför måste vi börja tala om ras. Först då kan vi förstå de samhällsproblem som handlar om vardagsrasism, segregation och diskriminering.Med inspiration från kritisk ras- och vithetsforskning skärskådar tolv forskare med varierande akademisk bakgrund dagens Sverige. Dessutom berättar medlemmar i Mellanförskapet, författare, journalister och andra om sina erfarenheter av att leva som icke-vita svenskar i dagens Sverige.
Abstract [en]
We live in a complex, interconnected and constantly changing world. Human driven global climate change is now a local reality that reinforces the inherent need for adaptability in human systems. Adaptability, the capacity to adapt to disturbance and change and navigate system transformation, can be understood as a function of socio-political interactions. The capacity of governing systems to deal with novel challenges through novel forms of interaction is a key issue in the governance literature, but which is only beginning to be explored. We therefore know little of how global change will impact the local level and how institutions and governing systems will respond.
The need for adaptability is likely to be more pronounced for tightly coupled human-environmental systems. Indigenous and natural resource dependent communities in general, and in the Northern hemisphere in particular, are among the most exposed to ongoing and projected climate change. In Sweden, reindeer husbandry is an Indigenous Sami livelihood and extensive land-use practice highly exposed to weather conditions and increasing competition over land and resources. Whereas herders struggle to deal with the challenges that now confront them, the practice is also known as resilient and sustainable, having withstood large-scale social, ecological and economic change before.
The aim with this thesis is to explore adaptability from a governancetheoretical perspective in the case of Sami reindeer husbandry in Sweden. The thesis thereby contributes to the emerging literatures on governance and adaptability and addresses empirically identified needs.
Theoretically, the thesis draws on Kooiman’s interactive governance framework, which offers a multidimensional approach to governance analysis where structural aspects are addressed through modes (self-, coand hierarchical governing) and intentional aspects through governing elements (images, instruments and action). While conceptually encompassing, the framework has rarely been employed in empirical analyses. In advancing an operationalisation of the framework based on governing orders (operational, institutional and meta-order), the thesis thereby makes a theoretical contribution.
Designed as a qualitative case study, the thesis explores how reindeer husbandry is governed and how governing has changed over time (institutional and meta-order); how the governing system restricts or facilitates adaptation and transformation (operational order); and how a governance-theoretical perspective can contribute to our understanding of adaptability. Methods include document analysis, focus groups, interviews and participatory observation. Studies focussing the operational order have been conducted in collaboration with Vilhelmina North reindeer herding community in Västerbotten county, Sweden.
The results show that only marginal change has occurred over time and state actors still dominate governing interactions. The governing system is riddled with inconsistencies among governing elements and particularly problematic is the lack of coherence between different meta-order images and between different actors. This gives rise to divergent and conflicting views as to ‘what’ the system of reindeer husbandry is and explains some of the observed governing inaction and limited problem-solving capacity of the governing system. Herders are currently highly restricted in their opportunities for adaptation and transformation and the governing system therefore acts restricting rather than facilitating on adaptability. By adopting a governance-theoretical approach, adaptability as a system quality has been decomposed and challenged and the important role of governing images and power in determining adaptability has been highlighted. It has called attention to questions such as who is forced to adapt, how images and governing interactions are constructed, and how different socio-political actors can exercise influence over the governing system and interactions taking place therein.
The thesis calls for more critical and empirical research on adaptability and argues that future studies need to situate and balance adaptability against other fundamental values and rights. In the case of reindeer husbandry, efforts are needed to create a better internal fit between governing elements as well as between involved socio-political actors. This could enable more equal governing interactions with other land-users and thereby contribute to mitigating conflicts as well as increasing adaptability.
In the summer of 2013 a conflict between a mining company and a group of protesters took place in Gállok (Kallak) in northern Sweden. The conflict brought a long-standing debate to the surface about the so-called Swedish mining boom and its impact on both natural environments and the traditional Sami livelihood, reindeer herding. This article explores the power relations and structural and cultural violence experienced by members of a sameby (a Sami reindeer herding community) in its relations with the Swedish government-owned mining company LKAB. The study centres around the events that took place before and during the creation of an opinion piece, published in a Swedish national tabloid, involving both parties. The analysis uses two of the sameby members’ narratives to describe their experiences in order to investigate the power relations, which are then analysed using peace researcher Johan Galtung’s theories on structural and cultural violence.
This article demonstrates the credibility and rigor of yarning, an Indigenous cultural form of conversation, through its use as a data gathering tool with two different Indigenous groups, one in Australia and the second in Botswana. Yarning was employed not only to collect information during the research interview but to establish a relationship with Indigenous participants prior to gathering their stories through storytelling, also known as narrative. In exploring the concept of yarning in research, this article discusses the different types of yarning that emerged during the research project, how these differences were identified and their applicability in the research process. The influence of gender during the interview is also included in the discussion.
An exploratory approach via a single case study is used in this thesis to better understand two embedded units of analysis: the first unit of analysis explores Adnyamathanha resources management and decision-making protocols, and the second unit of analysis explores the Environmental Impact Assessment for Beverley Uranium Mine. ‘Adnyamathanha’ literally translates into English as ‘name for the people of the rock country’ and is associated with several sub-groups of Indigenous peoples from the northern Flinders Ranges region of South Australia. These sub-groups include Kuyani and Adnya-Kuyani, Biladapa, Warlpi, and Yadliawada and all are inextricably linked through complex relationships between people, land, kinship and language.
This thesis involves a critical examination of the various levels of participation by Adnyamathanha in the decision-making processes surrounding the commercial licensing at Beverley Mine. It clarifies issues and raises new questions about the interface between players involved in land use through a qualitative and participatory research methodology and set of methods used to explore the topic. Theoretical understandings are linked to Indigenous heritage and resources management to highlight the cultural values of past, present and future relationships between Indigenous peoples and customary lands. Deconstruction of the geographical landscape offers an insight to the spaces and places necessary for an equitable assessment of commercial, social and environmental land values.
In this study the trajectory of cultural heritage protection and resources management is examined as part of the key legislated processes that relates to heritage security and sustainability in Adnyamathanha country. Native Title was a focal point of engagement within the Beverley case and is therefore central to many of the discussion points throughout this thesis. An examination of the extent to which mining proponents and governments are responsible for impact assessments goes hand in hand with this discussion regarding participation by Aboriginal players in land use.
Examination of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in the Beverley case reveals that government and industry processes facilitated mining and devalued Adnyamathanha cultural heritage and site protection. I argue that the ideology behind ‘impact assessment’ and land use procedures within Australia remains dominated by a colonial framework committed to prioritising commercial perceptions of what is valuable based on national and global businessrelated interests. This ideology fails to accommodate Indigenous cultural heritage values and denies Indigenous peoples’ human rights. Findings reveal a disturbing scenario of inequitable engagement that unequivocally favoured miners’ rights and brutally disempowered Adnyamathanha, a pattern consistent with global trends.
The significance of this thesis lies in the validation of a culturally diverse range of understandings of land resources, especially the meanings of Adnyamathanha identity and Indigenous connectivity to the environment. Cultural heritage protection is explicitly linked to Indigenous governance and Indigenous engagement through prioritisation of Indigenous needs and values. This thesis identifies how capacity building and self-determination can improve governance and engagement strategies to galvanise and strengthen future outcomes for Adnyamathanha and other Indigenous players dealing with exploration and mining. Improving impact assessment participation using culturally appropriate protocols is one part of this multi-faceted solution.
This paper discusses the technique of 'yarning' as an action research process relevant for policy development work with Aboriginal peoples. Through a case study of an Aboriginal community-based smoking project in the Australian State of Victoria, the paper demonstrates how the Aboriginal concept of 'yarning' can be used to empower people to create policy change that not only impacts on their own health, but also impacts on the health of others and the Aboriginal organisation for which they work. The paper presents yarning within the context of models of empowerment and a methodological approach of participatory action research. The method is based on respect and inclusivity, with the final policy developed by staff for staff. Yarning is likely to be successful for action researchers working within a variety of Indigenous contexts.
According to international and national legislation, the Sami people in Sweden have the right to self-determination; more specifically, they have the right to form their own education. Current compulsory education is guided by the national curricula, Lpo 11. Thus, the curricula heavily influence education in schools throughout the country. In this paper, a content analysis is performed to explore the Lpo 11 from an Indigenous perspective, and it scrutinizes if and how Sami culture, values, traditions and knowledge are salient in the curricula. The results show that the Sami thematic only has a minor place in the Lpo 11. Furthermore, there are no knowledge requirements including the Sami thematic in the syllabi. In relation to expectations in international conventions and national legislation addressing Indigenous peoples and national minorities, there is a need of a higher degree of the Sami thematic in the curriculum.
The regulation of Outsiders to Aboriginal Country is theorised by scholars as invasion and contact, race relations, frontiers and acculturation. In this theories, Aboriginal People are represented as powerless and hopeless in the face of their inevitable assimilation. Aboriginal regulation of Outsiders is rarely investigated for Aboriginal agency. This research investigates the agency of a Rainforest Aboriginal Community in the regulation of Outsiders to their Country of past, present and future. It develops and uses an Indigenist research paradigm founded on the principles of Aboriginal ontology, epistemology and axiology.
This paper explores Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners’ experiences of the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission consultation process and the Australian Government’s nomination process for nuclear repository sites. The study investigates how structural and cultural violence is manifested in the relations between the Australian and South Australian Governments and members of the Adnyamathanha community. Structural violence includes power inequality, injustices and corruption built into social systems. Cultural violence means discriminatory attitudes and beliefs that justify and legitimise structural violence. The results show that structural violence is manifested in several ways including lack of information and language services as well as government representatives approaching individuals rather than the community. Cultural violence is demonstrated as discriminatory, colonial and racist attitudes and actions resulting in flawed consultation processes. The study concludes that in order to address structural and cultural violence Indigenous experiences and opinions must be heard and taken seriously.
From the very beginning let it be stated unambiguously: a basic need approach (BNA) is not the approach to social science in general or development studies in particular, but only one approach. There are others. They may focus on structures (particularly of production—consumption patterns of any type of goods and services), on processes (e.g., of how the structures change over time), and on how structure and process are constrained and steered by culture and nature, to mention just some examples, In more classical approaches there is also heavy emphasis on actors, their strategic games in cooperation and conflict and their motivations and capabilities. Nor is it assumed that one can pick any one of these approaches at will; they are probably all (and more could be added) indispensable for a rich picture of the human condition. The only thing that is assumed in the following is that a BNA, although not sufficient, is at least necessary; that a basic needs approach — or its equivalent in other terminologies — is an indispensable ingredient of development studies.
Historian Nils Ahnlund stirred a debate in 1937 by suggesting that Sweden was a weak and deficient coloniser. This outraged his listeners, who viewed seventeenth-century Sweden as a powerful nation. Such fault lines continue to suffuse characterisations of Sweden’s participation in global expansion. Suggesting that Sweden in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a colonising power is controversial, but less so today than previously. Recently renewed interest in Sweden’s colonial past and present raises questions of scope and meaning. How have historians interpreted Swedish expansion, what is included, and what is the meaning of the re-evaluation occurring in contemporary scholarship? While often relating Sweden to a Nordic or European context, it remains common to insist on Swedish exceptionalism in terms of colonial experiences and elect not to discuss expansion into the north of the Scandinavian Peninsula or in the Baltic region in terms of colonialism. In general, postcolonial influences have tended to move the discussion from “no colonialism” to “post-colonialism” without ever stopping at a discussion of early modern Swedish involvement in colonial expansion and its consequences. This chapter investigates how Swedish colonial expansion has been dealt with in historical scholarship, but also discusses what historical and contemporary debates reveal about Sweden’s relationship to European modernity.
We are accustomed to conceiving of violence in terms that are immediate, explosive, and spectacular, as erupting into instant, concentrated visibility. But as environmentalists, we need to engage the representational and strategic challenges posed by the relative invisibility of what I call slow violence, a violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous but instead is incremental, as its calamitous repercussions are postponed across a range of temporal scales.1 In so doing, we can complicate conventional assumptions about violence as a highly visible act that is newsworthy because it is event focused, time bound, and targeted at a specific body or bodies. The temporal dispersion of slow violence impacts the way we perceive and respond to a variety of social afflictions-from domestic abuse to post-traumatic stress-but has especially powerful implications for environmental calamities. Hence, a major challenge facing us is how to devise arresting stories, images, and symbols adequate to the elusive violence of delayed effects. Climate change, the thawing cryosphere, toxic drift, deforestation, soil erosion, the radioactive aftermaths of wars, acidifying oceans, and a host of other slowly unfolding environmental catastrophes confront us with formidable representational obstacles that can hinder our efforts to mobilize and act decisively. Crucially, slow violence is often not just attritional but is also exponential, operating as a major threat multiplier; slow violence can fuel, long-term, proliferating conflicts wrought from desperation as the conditions for sustaining life become geometrically degraded. If, as Edward Said notes, struggles over geography are never reducible to armed struggle but have a profound symbolic and narrative component as well and if, as Michael Watts insists, we must attend to the "violent geographies of fast capitalism," we need to supplement both of these essential injunctions with a deeper understanding of the slow violence of delayed effects that structures so many of our most consequential forgettings.2 Violence, above all environmental violence, needs to be seen-and thought through-as a contest over time. Faulkner's dictum that "The past is never dead. It's not even past" resonates with particular force across landscapes permeated by slow violence, landscapes of temporal overspill that elude rhetorical cleanup operations with their sanitary beginnings and endings.3 "Is the 'Post-' in 'Postcolonial' the 'Post-' in 'Postmodern'?," Kwame Anthony Appiah famously asked, and as environmentalists we might ask similarly searching questions of the "post" in postindustrial, post-Fordist, post-Cold War, and postconflict.4 If the past of slow violence is never past, then so too the post is never fully post: industrial particulates and effluents live on in the environmental elements we inhabit and in our very bodies, which epidemiologically and ecologically are never our simple contemporaries.5 Something similar applies to so-called postconflict societies whose leaders may annually commemorate, as marked on the calendar, the official cessation of hostilities while ongoing intergenerational slow violence (inflicted, say, by unexploded land mines or by arms dump carcinogens) may continue hostilities by other means. Ours is an age of onrushing turbo-capitalism in which the present feels more abbreviated than it used to, at least for the world's privileged classes who live surrounded by technological time savers that often compound the sensation of being time poor. Consequently, one of the most pressing challenges of our age is how to adjust our rapidly eroding attention spans to the slow erosions of environmental justice. If under neoliberalism the gulf between enclaved rich and outcast poor has become ever more pronounced, ours is also an era of enclaved time in which speed has become for many a self-justifying, propulsive ethic that renders "uneventful" violence (to those who live remote from its attritional lethality) a weak claimant on our time. The attosecond pace of our age, with its restless technologies of infinite promise and infinite disappointment, prompts us to keep flicking and clicking distractedly in an insatiable (and often insensate) quest for quicker sensation. Politically and emotionally, different kinds of disaster possess unequal heft. Falling bodies, burning towers, exploding heads, avalanches, and volcanoes have a visceral page-turning power that tales of slow violence, unfolding over years, decades, and even centuries, cannot match. Stories of toxic buildup, massing greenhouse gases, and accelerated species loss due to ravaged habitats may all be cataclysmic, but they are scientifically convoluted cataclysms in which casualties are postponed, often for generations. In an age when the media venerates the spectacular and when public policy is shaped primarily around perceived immediate need, how can we convert into image and narrative disasters that are slow moving and long in the making, disasters that are anonymous and star nobody, disasters that are attritional and of indifferent interest to the sensation-driven technologies of our image-world? How can we turn the long emergencies of slow violence into stories dramatic enough to rouse public sentiment and warrant political intervention in these emergencies, whose repercussions have given rise to some of the most critical challenges of our time? To address the challenges of slow violence is to confront the dilemma that Rachel Carson faced almost half a century ago as she sought to dramatize what she called "death by indirection."6 Carson's subjects were biomagnification and toxic drift, forms of oblique, slow-acting violence that, like climate change, pose formidable imaginative difficulties for writers and activists alike. In struggling to give shape to amorphous menace, both Carson and reviewers of Silent Spring resorted to a narrative vocabulary. One reviewer portrayed the book as exposing "the new, unplotted and mysterious dangers we insist upon creating all around us,"7 while Carson herself wrote of "a shadow that is no less ominous because it is formless and obscure" (238). To confront slow violence requires, then, that we plot and give figurative shape to formless threats whose fatal repercussions are strewn across space and time. The representational challenges are acute, requiring creative ways of drawing public attention to catastrophic acts that are low in instant spectacle but high in long-term effects. To intervene representationally entails devising the iconic symbols to embody amorphous calamities and the narrative forms to infuse them with dramatic urgency.
There is a dearth of empirical evidence on the extent of racist attitudes, broadly defined, in Australia. A telephone survey of 5056 residents in Queensland and NSW examined attitudes to cultural difference, perceptions of the extent of racism, tolerance of specific groups, ideology of nation, perceptions of Anglo-Celtic cultural privilege, and belief in racialism, racial separatism and racial hierarchy. The research was conducted within a social constructivist understanding of racisms. Racist attitudes are positively associated with age, non-tertiary education, and to a slightly lesser extent with those who do not speak a language other than English, the Australia-born, and with males. Anti-Muslim sentiment is very strong, but there is also a persistence of some intolerance against Asian, Indigenous and Jewish Australians. Those who believe in racial hierarchy and separatism (old racisms) are a minority and are largely the same people who self-identify as being prejudiced. The 'new racisms' of cultural intolerance, denial of Anglo-privilege and narrow constructions of nation have a much stronger hold. Nonetheless, sociobiologically related understandings of race and nation remain linked to these new racisms. Narrow understandings of what constitutes a nation (and a community) are in tension with equally widely held liberal dispositions towards cultural diversity and dynamism. Encouragingly, most respondents recognise racism as a problem in Australian society and this is a solid basis for anti-racism initiatives.
Using the concept of internal colonisation, this paper aims to demonstrate how current disputes over wind power developments in traditional Saami mountain areas have reignited contestations between Saami people and the Swedish state. It traces the historical continuities in these contestations. It also analyses shifts in the discourses legitimising the state's nonrecognition of Saami rights to land. The paper explores three discursive frameworks that reflect these continuities and shifts. First, it traces contestations over the ownership of 'Crown' (ie, state) land and the paternalistic practices of the state. Second, it explores how a discourse of renewable energy is currently being mobilised to argue that Saami interests must necessarily give way to broader environmental concerns. Third, it analyses how long-standing colonial rationalities are rearticulated through market relations, as the state seeks to construct a pseudo planning market for wind power developments, which necessarily excludes Saami interests. These debates, and the ongoing resistances by Saami people to industrial encroachments on their traditional territories, highlight the fundamentally unresolved relations between the Saami and the non-Indigenous majority society in Sweden.