Imagine a stage so accessible, that when the event start is postponed spontaneously by one hour, the crowd takes the stage on its own, to performs songs and poetry by themselves.
(Then imagine, what an awesome crowd that was.)
This is just one of my best recollections from Soptsestimmie, a unique gathering that was held 5-7 June 2024 in front of the Nordlandsmuseet in Bådåddjo / Bodø, Norway. Organized parallel to the annual Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference, Soptsestimmie, which means “conversation” in South Sámi language, brought together an international array of Indigenous artists, scholars and activists, and several representatives of the local Sámi reindeer herding community Jillen Njaarke Sïjte.
The stage in question was Girjegumpi, a nomadic structure designed and built collectively by the Sámi artist and architect Joar Nango and his team of collaborators. During the three evenings, people gathered inside Girjegumpi for music performances, poetry, traditional Sámi board games, gifts ceremonies and food, and to discuss shared issues such as Indigenous land-based struggles, relationality, decolonization, and global solidarity.
The event was produced by the Indigenous academic collective Bárru and Elsa Laula Renberg Institute (ELRI), in collaboration with Nango and Nordlandsmuseet, and funded by several actors, including UArctic. Bárru and ELRI are recently established, self-standing, Sámi-led initiatives which are pushing forward new, nomadic concepts and practices for academic, activist and artistic collaboration. While both are highly interesting in their own right, soptsestimmie provides an inspiring example of what an autonomous Indigenous academia may look like in the Arctic context. Below, I explore shortly why and how, focusing especially on the ethics and practice of the Elsa Laula Renberg Institute.
Elsa Laula Renberg Institute
Named after the South Sámi activist, writer, midwife and politician who had a central role in the Sámi anti-colonial and feminist movement in the early 20th Century, Elsa Laula Renberg Institute was born out of a dire need to disseminate accurate knowledge on Norway’s violation of Sámi human rights in the context of the so-called Fosen case.
The Fosen case refers to an ongoing dispute between South Sámi reindeer herders in Fovsen Njaarke Sïjte and Fosen Vind DA over a large, mainly state-owned wind energy complex that was constructed between 2016-2020. The construction went ahead while a civil lawsuit against its was still pending, and despite strong objections by local reindeer herders due to its fatal impact on the reindeer. A year after its completion, in 2021, the Supreme Court of Norway finally delivered its verdict on the case, concluding that some of its parts violated the Indigenous rights of the Fosen Sámi, and therefore the licenses for their construction were illegal.
The verdict raised expectations that the energy infrastructure could be dismantled to actually restore the reindeer pastures. However, two years later, the state had still not taken any action to implement the ruling. In response to the blatant violation of their rights, the Sámi organized a string of protests in Oslo over the course of 2023, accusing the Norwegian state of green colonialism. The protests culminated in October, with several days long street demonstrations and sit-ins.
The protests attracted broad attention and support, but disinformation and efforts to downplay the case were also strife. Sámi political historian Mikkel Berg-Nordlie recalls how the media and the general public confronted the demonstrators over and over with the very same basic questions. Mostly, the questions reflected profound ignorance of Sámi rights, history, and present.
Contemplating the challenge, he and the other two co-founders of the Elsa Laula Renberg Institute, researchers Eva Maria Fjellheim and Henrikke Ellingsen, felt that the most effective way to contribute to the protests as community-engaged scholars was by addressing this lack of knowledge, and the role of academia in contexts of human rights violations.
Elsa Laula Renberg Institute was established in the protest camp outside the Norwegian Parliament as a mobile Sámi knowledge hub, or as an urban lávvu, where people could stop by to ask questions, discuss, attend public talks and lectures, and take “exams” to test their knowledge on the case. The immediate aim of its founders was to relieve the activists of some of the burden of public communication, and to make more active use of their own research side-by-side with the demonstrations.
Nomadic and autonomous in spirit and form, ELRI does not have – nor does it seek to obtain – anything fixed or permanent except for a desire to make the academia accountable to Sámi rights and autonomy, in solidarity with other struggles against colonial injustice. In essence, it is a creative stand-by Institute which emerges when and where needed, and when an opportunity opens up.
Soptsestimmie
Soptsestimmie was ELRI’s second major action, and produced in close collaboration with Joar Nango and the Sámi-led Indigenous academic collective Bárru, which is working to support Indigenous academic voices, communities and collaborations across social, cultural and institutional barriers. This time, the action was organized in support of Jillen Njaarke, a Sámi reindeer herding siida south of Bådåddjo that is contesting another large wind energy complex, owned by Øyfjellet Wind, in the Norwegian court.
The action took place in Joar Nango’s Girjegumpi, a “nomadic library” or a flexible set of structures which takes a somewhat different shape every time it is reassembled. In Bådåddjo, Girjegumpi seemed to merge the traditional Sámi tent, or a lávvu, with a Greek agora. In addition to a small stage made out of a reindeer herders’ mobile cabin (gumpi), it included a round arena that was organized as the interior space of the lávvu, with separate compartments for live fire/the kitchen, firewood, and rest, and surrounded by upward wooden steps that were covered by soft reindeer skins.
On top, the space was held together and protected by arched, sculpted birch trunks, and an old fishing boat which doubled as a narrow roof. Built between a few large trees that gave it further cover and with the lingering smells of open fire, freshly boiled coffee, and occasional summer rain, the atmosphere inside Girjegumpi was rather otherworldly, standing in stark contrast with the square, hard and noisy environment of the surrounding city center.
The program unfolded in the embrace of this space, facilitated by the main hosts, Liisa-Ravna Finbog, Eva Maria Fjellheim and Mikkel Berg-Nordlie. For instance, Ramona Kappfjell Sørfjell from Jillen Njaarke told about their struggle for land and about her personal journey as a South Sámi teacher. Sámi scholars Anne-Maria Magga and Ragnhild Nilsson discussed the meaning of relations and relationality in their own life and work as both political theorists and reindeer herders. Cherokee literature scholar and land back activist Joseph M. Pierce and Anishinaable curator and artist Wanda Nanibush reflected on ther experiences of decolonial work within and without academic and art institutions. Eyak/Alaska native geographer and writer Jen Rose Smith’s strong yet subtle presence fixed everyone completely still and focused on her beautiful poetry on snow and ice as land.
The discussion that I found thematically most important, however, was the last one, which centered on global solidarity and decolonization. There, we heard also Bahaa Eleyan, a Palestinian from Gaza who is currently completing a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at UiT, tell about his own experiences of Palestine solidarity – and the glaring lack of it – within universities and the academia. Indigenous academia is not exempt from such critique and this is clearly an issue that should have received more attention also in the NAISA conference. There are no excuses to excluding Palestine and Gaza from discussions that center decolonization and Indigenous rights, especially in times of an ongoing genocide. This was the message conveyed also by the Inuit artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, whose powerful poetry and throat singing performance in the first evening of Soptsestimmie ended in a strong insistence for Indigenous solidarity with Palestine.
ELRI, Bárru and Soptestimmie as pathways for Sámi academic autonomy
I was personally involved in Soptsestimmie as a member of the organizing committee and as a representative of two research projects that participated in the background: NESAR funded by the Research Council of Norway, and RADISAM funded by the Swedish Research Council. As an experiment in autonomous academia, the collaboration with ELRI, Bárru, Nango and Nordlandmuseet was mindblowing.
First, Soptsestimmie reminded me of the real power of artistic and creative expression, as well as of the central impact that physical surroundings have on our ability to experience, give and receive collectively. The whole event was strongly shaped by Girjegumpi, which turned out to be inseparable of the character and spirit of the gathering itself. And, although I had been slightly skeptical of including poetry in the program (“would they turn out pretentious?”) in the end the poetry sessions may have been the most indispensable part. Performed by real people who move us with nothing but their embodied presence and a flow of sounds and words, poetry is transformative.Second, Soptsestimmie invites one to rethink the art of academic events and organizing more broadly. Compared to its international reach and character, the event was organized on a very light budget, making active use of elements that were already there: Girjegumpi was in Bådåddjo because it was commissioned by the Nordlandsmuseet. Most of the international performers, invited speakers and audience traveled to the town primarily to attend the NAISA conference. And the town, Bådåddjo, where the conference was organized happened to be just a stone throw from Jillen Njaarke Sijte, which, parallel to the event, sat in Court to defend their ancestral landscape. Moved by a desire to bring international attention to the issue of green colonialism in Sápmi, all we needed to do was to harness these various concurrences, and make them meet.
This capacity and readiness to make temporary use of available resources, flows, opportunities and relations, without reliance on fixed walls, academic hierarchies or substantial capital, could ground academic freedom and independence in the Arctic region also more broadly. As our world enters an area of unpredictable deep crises and polarization, when genocide and ecocide are normalized, and when academic freedom and freedom of speech are increasingly threatened, initiatives and collectives like ELRI and Bárru are showing pathways towards other, more autonomous and accountable ways of doing and being the academia. We don’t need more high-profile, fancy Arctic conferences: what we need are collectivities, spaces and connections that empower, nurture and encourage critical thought. Such collectivities can very well dwell on, and make use, existing institutions and structures, but never depend on any single of them.
By Laura Junka-Aikio, Politics and Cultural Studies scholar, Professor of Northern Politics and Government at the University of Lapland, Finland. Photos courtesy of the author
