Strategies of decolonisation : portraits of elderly female pioneers in the Sami ethno-political movement

• Main Author: Liliequist, Marianne
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för kultur- och medievetenskaper 2015
• Subjects: age; Sami identity; gender; social class; ethno-political mobilisation; life-stories; Cultural Studies; Kulturstudier; Ethnology; Etnologi; Gender Studies; Genusstudier; sami
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-110258

This article is about elderly Sami women who are front figures in the ethno-political mobilisation movement, acting from artistic platforms or in traditional political arenas. The Sami culture has been described as male-dominated and Sami women as dually oppressed, belonging to a minority people while also being women, but there are many Sami women, especially the elderly, who in recent decades have emerged as prominent figures in the fight for the survival of Sami culture. How do these prominent figures describe their own position and status? What strategies do they use, as elderly Sami women, to enter the Sami and non-Sami public spheres? How do they tell their story, what is it that motivates them, what obstacles have they faced and what has helped them? This chapter conducts an intersectional analysis on an individual level of the strategic approaches of three women. I have looked at the way these strategies emerge in the women's life stories. Depending on special circumstances, either currently or earlier in their life, ethnicity, gender, age and class are emphasized to various degrees in the different narratives.