Braiding Time : Sami Temporalities for Indigenous Justice

• Published in: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
• Main Authors: Buhre, Frida, Bjork, Collin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Linköpings universitet, Tema Barn, Linköping, Sweden 2021
• Subjects: Capitalist time; Indigenous rhetoric; Politics of erasure; Sami political mobilization; Swedish colonization; emporal othering; Other Humanities not elsewhere specified; Övrig annan humaniora; Turtle Island; sami
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-496655; https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2021.1918515

In Indigenous/settler relations, temporal rhetoric functions as an essential tool for both subjugation and resistance. Much scholarship on these temporalities focuses on Turtle Island and is thus implicitly shaped by a seminal historical event: the arrival of European colonizers. We extend this research by turning to Sweden, where the Indigenous Sami and the Scandinavians, who would later become their colonizers, have a long history of continuous interaction. We analyze a pamphlet written by Elsa Laula, the leader of the Sami civil rights movement in early twentieth-century Sweden, as well as Swedish policies and press documents from the time. While the settler Swedes employ similar techniques of temporal othering and erasure as colonizers on Turtle Island, Laula’s rhetoric differs subtly. Her rhetoric enacts resistance by highlighting how Sami temporalities are braided with Swedish temporalities, a rhetorical move that echoes their intertwined histories.