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Projects > P - R > REPRESENTATIONS OF SAMI IN THE

Preferred term

REPRESENTATIONS OF SAMI IN THE  

Definition

  • The Sami in travel writings form an image of a history being told about them. Being represented meant for the Sami that their lives and culture appeared stereotyped, because they inhabited areas that had been labelled as void from a scientific point of view ever since the time of Carl von Linné. The north was a place devoid of substance, which could therefore be filled with the explorers’ and researchers’ opinions and fantasies. During the nineteenth century, an interest in the exotic within the borders of the home nation was aroused, and in the process the Sami became objectified in travel writing. Polar travel writing formed part of the colonial project to conquer the northern parts of the Nordic countries, including Arctic areas. With reference to the Sami, this process provides us with simplified images. The representations of the Sami appear within a colonial discourse, in the form of depictions and explanations concerning the Arctic and the Sub-Arctic, and the people who inhabited these areas. It was common practice during the nineteenth century to discover “new” people and “new” cultures, and describe them, as a process of collecting information about them, and this was part of the colonial process as it was defined at that time. The depictions of the Sami in Sven Lovén’s travel journals from 1836-37, for instance, were mythical and ethnographical; they were also interwoven with perspectives on nature and the experience of being in an Arctic landscape that could be related to the Arctic sublime. There were also descriptions about the nature of the Sami, which could be connected to a three-dimensional layer of ethnocentrism, racism and exoticism. References to scientific works and literature also occurred in the text, but to a lesser extent. In other words, the several representations that existed at one and the same time may be divided into three themes that run parallel to one another in the travel writings of Lovén. References to scientific work were not so common in Lovén’s journals, and when they occurred they were usually dictionary references. Literature such as the epos Kalevala used, as references may be perceived as being of a mythical character. Other representations of a mythical character that related to the Sami were created in the context of socio-cultural descriptions, and may thus be perceived as ethnographic. The mythical and ethnographical representations were both embedded in romanticisation. Ethnographically coloured representations were common, for example, in art during the nineteenth century. These descriptions were close to the romantic view of the Sami. There were also descriptions of real dramas in the course voyages, and these may be detected as part of the Arctic sublime. In these descriptions, the Sami became a part of the Arctic sublime, since the Sami were perceived as able to interpret the behaviour of animals, which were part of the sublime. Depictions of the nature of the Sami formed another set of representations. The nature of the Sami is also connected to Sami society, described as being in opposition to Swedish/Western society, according to a racist perception of the Sami as being of a different race and nationality. Knowledge about the Sami decreased at the end of the nineteenth century, and this changed the image of the Sami to a more romantic perception, rather than a racist one. This romantic view was not part of the canon at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but it was nevertheless possible for this opinion to flourish. In travel writings from the nineteenth century it is clear that the travel writing contained personal opinions, which contaminated the text. People and cultures were designated as ‘the Other’ to define for the travellers what the former were not, i.e. Europeans. The stereotypical representations of the Sami may have been used to define what the explorers were not, in order not to risk becoming ‘the Other’ in the new and unknown environment that was the Arctic. Explorers were able to shift between representing Culture and being part of Nature at the same time. They never risked being estranged from themselves, since the otherness between Culture and Nature was inhabited by ‘the Other’. The in-between space was a place for explorers to get to know the wild man inside themselves, but since this space was already inhabited by ‘the Other’ this exploration could not get out of hand and result in the explorer turning into an alien being, or monster. Summary provided by http://classic.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=30 (en)

Broader concept

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https://gcmd.earthdata.nasa.gov/kms/concept/336d04f9-93f8-48fd-bece-50862dff852e

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