{"id":791,"date":"2021-05-17T09:42:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T07:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/?p=791"},"modified":"2021-05-17T09:42:05","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T07:42:05","slug":"language-citizenship-and-sami-education-in-the-nordic-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/2021\/05\/language-citizenship-and-sami-education-in-the-nordic-north\/","title":{"rendered":"Language, Citizenship, and S\u00e1mi Education in the Nordic North"},"content":{"rendered":"

Otso Kortekangas<\/a>, postdoc at the division, has written a new book. In “Language, Citizenship, and S\u00e1mi Education in the Nordic North, 1900-1940” Otso investigates how S\u00e1mi people were affected by nation state education doctrines in Finland’s, Norway’s and Sweden’s North. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One important part of the political context in the genesis of this book is the announcement of the Finnish government to form a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2019. Its task is to investigate, showcase and discuss injustice and oppression done by the Finnish state towards the S\u00e1mi, with the aim of reconciliation and a better future.<\/p>\n

Otso presents his book in the following text, first published on McGill-Queen’s University Press’ Blog<\/a> on 06 May 2021.<\/p>\n

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The year 2021 will witness the start of the work of a S\u00e1mi Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Finland. A TRC is already working in Norway, and in Sweden, the planning for a S\u00e1mi TRC is under way. The main aim of the TRCs in each country is to review and assess earlier governmental policies targeting the indigenous S\u00e1mi population in Norway, Finland and Sweden, make S\u00e1mi voices and experiences visible, and to point toward ways forward.<\/p>\n

Differently from the Canadian TRC (2008\u20132015) that focused on indigenous education and residential schools, the Nordic S\u00e1mi TRCs will take a comprehensive approach to historical policies targeting the S\u00e1mi and, in the case of Norway, the Finnish-speaking Kven minority. However, governmental educational policies will be a very important theme for the commissions to investigate, as assimilation and segregation applied in education is one of the external forces that have molded S\u00e1mi culture the most during the 20th century.<\/p>\n

As elucidated in my book Language, Citizenship, and S\u00e1mi Education in the Nordic North, 1900-1940<\/em><\/strong> (MQUP 2021), different educational actors had different approaches. S\u00e1mi education was traditionally organized by the Lutheran churches in each country. The high priority the Lutheran dogma ascribes to the intelligibility of the gospel and Christianity education by large entailed that S\u00e1mi language varieties were in use as languages of instruction in many schools with S\u00e1mi pupils in the Nordic north. Gradually, the governments of Norway, Sweden, and Finland took over the responsibility for elementary education from the church around the turn of the century 1900. The governmental educational authorities and politicians downgraded the importance of S\u00e1mi language in education, as quality of education and the mastering of each country\u2019s majority language became paramount educational aims. In Norway and Finland, assimilation to the majority population was the norm in the governmental elementary schools, with certain exceptions. The nomadic reindeer herding S\u00e1mi in Sweden\u2019s mountain regions were de jure separated to their own group, with the obligation to place their children in specific schools. These so called nomad schools were designed after the idealized notion Swedish elementary authorities had on the \u201ctrue\u201d S\u00e1mi way of life and efficient reindeer herding.<\/p>\n

\"\"
S\u00e1mi poet and teacher Pedar Jalvi in 1905. Credit: Armas Launis. Copyright: CC BY SA 4.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The educational reforms of the early twentieth century that led, in many individual cases, to the tragic loss of S\u00e1mi language, had a brighter side, as well. As in many other instances of minority education, the skills and knowledge S\u00e1mi pupils gained in the schools had, at least in some cases, an empowering function. Most of the powerhouses spearheading the early and mid-twentieth century S\u00e1mi cultural movements and the S\u00e1mi opposition to government policies were teachers, educated at schools and on teachers\u2019 training courses to navigate both the S\u00e1mi and the majority culture contexts. These teachers were pioneers of promoting S\u00e1mi culture as an active, independent culture that existed alongside and independent of other Nordic cultures and states.<\/p>\n

While the TRCs in each country are paramount for the future relations of the S\u00e1mi and the majority populations, it is important to keep in mind that the S\u00e1mi existed and exist also outside of the frame and borders of each of the three nation states. There is a certain risk of nationalization and further minoritization of the S\u00e1mi in Norway, Sweden and Finland if the various S\u00e1mi groups are always first and foremost treated as a national minority rather than a transnational population. It is critical that this historical transnational fact, together with the diversity of voices and perspectives within S\u00e1mi education, are included in the work of the TRCs in each country. Only by so doing will it be possible to reproduce a rightful picture of historical events as a base for future reconciliation processes.<\/p>\n

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If you are interested in reading more, check out Otso’s book here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Otso Kortekangas, postdoc at the division, has written a new book. In “Language, Citizenship, and S\u00e1mi Education in the Nordic North, 1900-1940” Otso investigates how S\u00e1mi people were affected by nation state education doctrines in Finland’s, Norway’s and Sweden’s North. One important part of the political context in the genesis of this book is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[57,67,4,3],"tags":[128,127,126],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-class","category-publications","category-research","category-the-division","tag-colonialism","tag-new-book","tag-sami"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions\/797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}