Discursive elaborations of ‘Saami’ ethnos: A multi-source model of ethnic and ethnopolitical structuration

• Published in: Anthropological Theory
• Main Author: Díaz de Rada, Ángel
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2015
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous); Anthropology; Norway; saami
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1463499615609067; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1463499615609067; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/1463499615609067

This essay provides ethnographic and historical insight into the discursive elaborations of the ‘Saami’ ethnos in order to argue that ethnic and ethnopolitical structuration must not be reduced to categorical ontology, least of all as a unitary mode of social classification. Building on fieldwork in Guovdageaidnu (Norway), and an analysis of government documents, this text presents a multi-source model of ethnic and ethnopolitical structuration. The model offers a frame for historical processes, and explicates the articulations and disarticulations in the relationships between socialization and the universalistic categorization of belonging found within ethnopolitical discourse.