Urban Sámi Identities in Scandinavia: Hybridities,Ambivalences and Cultural Innovation

One of the most significant social and cultural changes in the northern part of Scandinavia, as in other parts of the world, is urbanization. All over the northern region, towns and cities are growing, and a large portion of the indigenous population now lives in urban areas throughout all Scandinavian countries. Within these multicultural cities, urban Sámi communities are emerging and making claims to the cities. From a situation where migration from a Sámi core area to a city was associated with assimilation, an urban Sámi identity is now in the making. In this article, we discuss what seems to be the emergence of an urban Sámi culture. The article builds on findings from a study of urban Sámi and their expression of identity in three cities with the largest and fastest-growing Sámi populations in the region: Tromsø (Norway), Umeå (Sweden) and Rovaniemi (Finland). A main finding is the increasing recognition of their status as indigenous people and the growth in Sámi institutions in the cities. Another finding is an urban Sámi culture in the making, where new expressions of Sámi identity are given room to grow, but where we also find ambivalences and strong links and identifications to places in the Sámi core districts outside of the cities.     

Re-examining risk factors of genocide

This article assesses the risk factors of genocide. Drawing upon previous research on genocide and the United Nations’ Atrocity Prevention Framework, it employs an event history analysis of over 150 countries between 1955 and 2005. While existing frameworks emphasize general upheaval, this article disaggregates the type of upheaval, finding that economic upheaval—such as resource scarcity or population pressure—does not influence the odds of genocide. Instead, political upheaval that enables a repressive leader to come to power (including coups, assassinations, civil wars and successful revolutions) and political upheaval that directly threatens those in power (including coup attempts, campaigns against the state, unsuccessful revolutions and civil wars that do not coincide with regime change) have the strongest influence on the onset of genocide. These findings are consistent with previous findings that emphasize political upheaval and threat but specify numerous indicators of these broad phenomena. This article also highlights the role of discrimination and exclusion, although it casts doubt on many other risk factors included in recent case studies and in the United Nations’ Atrocity Prevention Framework.     

'Figure it out!' Psychological Perspectives on Perception of Migration Period Animal Art

In this article we explore some perceptual-psychological and semiotic aspects of the Migration Period 'animal art'from the northern Germanic cultural area. Primarily, it is suggested that this art, which has been described as using symmetry and 'split representations', is laden with 'ambiguous figures' (including 'embedded figures' and 'reversible figures'). The ambiguous quality of the art is suggested to be presenton a perceptual level, but also on a compositional (structural) and iconographic level. Psychological (and neurological) processes involved in the perception of ambiguous figures and their effects are presented: Gestalt formation, unconscious processing, subliminal perception, motivated perception, and changed states of consciousness. It is suggested that this art instigated,or at least referred to such processes. In addit ion,on a semiot iclevel, t heart is suggested to contain information-condensation ('hyper-texts'), cryptic information, and to have had other semiotic functions.     

Kirkenes: An Industrial Site Reinvented as a Border Town

Abstract

1 1. This is a significantly revised version of an article published in Nyseth and Granås 2007 “Place-reinvention – Dynamics and Governance Perspectives”, Stockholm: Nordregio. This article analyses the transformation of Kirkenes, a small town on the Russian–Norwegian border, from an industrial town to a border town. Kirkenes was established as a harbour for an iron-ore mining venture in what today is the municipality of Sør-Varanger. This industry closed down during the 1990s. The article describes how Kirkenes has been transformed within “bordered” relationships of civic society, business and a combination of high-level and local political activities. Being a border town and a centre in the Barents Region is the hegemonic narrative of today. The manifold transformations have led to a situation where Kirkenes has become “Russianized”, though local actors struggle with how to handle this aspect of local development and the meaning of the place. The article also investigates to what degree the transformations have changed local identity. The focus is on how identities are dealt with, whether they are seen as immanent and essential cultural traits, or as something that tends to be changed and adapted to the situation. Based on the concept of narrative identities, there are reasons to believe that there are strong identities based on both public narratives relating to local history and nature and metanarratives about globalization and cross-border communities.