From Homeland to Homelands and Back Again

Today Saami people mostly reside in arctic regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Their prehistoric trajectories, predating “borders,” are as nonlinear as the antecedent trajectories that implicate more and more, eventually all, of us humans. Saami and other Fourth World peoples share conce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Departures in Critical Qualitative Research
Main Author: Anderson, Myrdene
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: University of California Press 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2019.8.2.100
http://online.ucpress.edu/dcqr/article-pdf/8/2/100/236716/dcqr_2019_8_2_100.pdf
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Summary:Today Saami people mostly reside in arctic regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Their prehistoric trajectories, predating “borders,” are as nonlinear as the antecedent trajectories that implicate more and more, eventually all, of us humans. Saami and other Fourth World peoples share concerns about the survival of their cultures, their languages, themselves. Their “homeland” consists in the rights they claim in their now enveloping nation-states. In contrast, refugees' historic trajectories have entailed the transgression of borders—centripetally and centrifugally, by gradual or urgent leaks and absorptions—sometimes landing them in the same, already contested, spaces. In this essay, traditionally nomadic Saami encounter the most contemporary of global migrants and refugees.