Tastes of Sovereignty : An Ethnography of Sámi Food Movements in Arctic Sweden
In this dissertation, I examine the process of building a Sámi food movement in northern Sweden. Using 15 months of ethnographic research that included observation of food events (n=100) and semi-structured interviews with food producers and activists (n=47), I describe how Sámi individuals are inco...
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| Other Authors: | , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English unknown |
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Oregon State University
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| Online Access: | https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/ww72bg02v |
| Summary: | In this dissertation, I examine the process of building a Sámi food movement in northern Sweden. Using 15 months of ethnographic research that included observation of food events (n=100) and semi-structured interviews with food producers and activists (n=47), I describe how Sámi individuals are incorporating global food activism frameworks into their efforts to maintain Sámi cultural and livelihood practices. Two frameworks have become salient to Sámi efforts: food sovereignty and rural food development. I find that on the one hand food sovereignty provides a discourse that enables Sámi activists to address their concerns with land access and climate change, which threaten their food production. On the other hand, the protection and development of their heritage foods, through programs like Slow Food and other third party certifications, enable them to connect with consumers and to address their concern for the cooptation of Sámi knowledge, which equally threatens their ability to make a living selling Sámi foods and culinary knowledge. I demonstrate that new discourses and spaces become available – nutrition science discourses and national food conferences for example – which Sámi activists accustomize for their own ends. This dissertation is one of the first to address how indigenous sovereignty movements and food movements are together enabling indigenous peoples to work towards sovereignty in new discourses and spaces. It advances our understanding of how food movements can contribute to building indigenous sovereignty and economies, at the same time it introduces us to some of the risks inherent to this approach. |
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