Memory Institutions and Sámi Heritage

<p>With a focus on Sápmi – the transcultural and transnational homeland of the Sámi people – this book presents case studies and theoretical frameworks which explore the ways in which memory institutions such as museums archives and festivals participate in and guide processes of appropriation decolonization and memory-making.</p><p>The destruction and concealment of Sámi objects in both private and museum collections worldwide have impacted Sámi knowledge systems disrupting local ways of knowing. Appreciation and reappropriation are important acts of decolonization which seek to create openings for reconnection to traditions languages and practices that were forcibly suppressed in the past. Western memory institutions such as museums archives and galleries have had a great impact on how heritage has been collected stored conserved and organized within closed walls and glass cases. As the new museology movement developed in the 1990s numerous examples revealed how difficult it became for researchers and public alike to access heritage. Considering the proliferation of cultural interventions and the growth of Sámi mobilization which calls into question assumptions about how best to activate and experience Sámi cultural heritage and what constitutes appropriate stewardship this book sheds light on initiatives to return artefacts to the Sámi community. With particular attention to the ways in which Sámi self-determination and the shifting boundaries between Indigenous and settler identities are articulated challenged and renegotiated it draws on approaches from critical museology and Indigenous methodologies to explore the initiation experience and operationalizing of restitution projects.</p><p>This book will therefore appeal to scholars of cultural studies anthropology sociology and museum and heritage studies as well as to those interested in questions of repatriation restitution and healing processes.</p>