Tag Archives: decolonization

Dorothée Cambou and Øyvind Ravna (eds.) The Significance of Sámi Rights: Law, Justice and Sustainability for the Indigenous Sámi in the Nordic Countries (Oxon: Routledge, 2024)

Book Review (editor review), , , ,

The Significance of Sámi Rights: Law, Justice and Sustainability for the Indigenous Sámi in the Nordic Countries is a collection of academic chapters examining international law regarding Indigenous Peoples and its implementation in Sápmi. The chief editors, Dorothée Cambou and Øyvind Ravna, continue their strong track record of excellent in research on Sámi rights and have recruited an impressive group of contributors who do not disappoint.

The anthology contains thirteen contributions from a total of fifteen contributors, including the editors.

Only a brief outline of each chapter is presented in this review as Cristine Allard has provided a very good summary in the concluding chapter that not only reviews each contribution but draws out some common themes: increased significance of human rights law; competing land and water uses on Sámi territories; and Sámi invisibility within the larger society. Some of the chapters provide analyses of legal disputes and decisions; while others are studies of particular issues (land use conflicts, data sovereignty, and Indigenous education).

Editors Cambou and Ravna open the book with a short introduction to the wider research project under which it was organised. Matthias Åhren discusses the impact of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Sápmi, pointing out the interaction of this formally non-binding instrument with binding human rights treaties and constitutional provisions. He also explains that Indigenous rights differ from general human rights in that they uphold the right to be different (p6) but that they are also not simple minority rights owing to the inherent connection to land, pre-conquest (pp7-10). Ravna explains the Karasjok case in Finnmark and the court’s deviation from earlier jurisprudence on land claims in the Norwegian courts, one that Ravna welcomes as more in keeping with Indigenous rights.  Martin Scheinin analyses three Finnish cases arising for Sámi civil disobedience that ultimately led to acquittals for the Sámi prosecuted for ‘illegal’ fishing. Although these are ‘wins’ for the Sámi, Scheinin identifies some limitations in the courts’ approach and some missed opportunities, for example, in recognising the right to transmit culture to future generations and in seeing fishing as more than activity but rather as an aspect of social life (p47). Cambou analyses the Fosen decision, holding a massive windfarm in Sápmi to have been constructed illegally, in light of Norway‘s international legal obligations, pointing out that a consultaiton process cannot be used as a fig leaf to cover substantive violations. Eivind Torp discusses the Girjas case, in which the Swedish Supreme Court upheld the exclusive rights of Sami villages to manage hunting and fishing on their territories, while noting that this further entrenches divisions between those Sámi who are members of Sámi villages and those who remain outside, that distinction having been introduced by Sweden in the 19th century.

Lenna Heinämäki looks at the bigger picture of obligations not to weaken Sámi culture under Finnish constitutional law and various other provisions, including the Mining Act and the Environmental Protection Act. Attempts to introduce a simliar clause in the Forestry Act (Metsähallitus Act) failed but nonetheless, the act must be interpreted in light of international law, including the (as yet unratified by Finland) ILO Convention 169. The Finnish national forest and park service (Metsähallitus) has adopted the Akwé: Kon Guidelines that protect Indigenous Peoples within the context of biodiversity preservation. Nothwithstanding all these provisions, however, implementation is lacking. Malin Brännström examines the forestry law in Finland in light of conflicts with other relationships with land, including Sámi reindeer herding and private property rights. Reindeer herding does not create a property right under Finnish law which limits Sámis ability to protect their historic rights, with herding viewed as a  ‘public interest’ or industry that faces trade-offs with economic interests in forestry. Elsa Reimerson and Linn Flodén examine co-management of protected areas in Sápmi, in one of the few contributions that provides a comparative, cross-border account. Cautiously optimistic regarding the potential for ‘collaborative and participatory arrangements’ (p126), they nonetheless recognise that these approaches still maintain colonial notions of human-environment relationships. Peter Dawson discusses the impacts of the shortage of disaggregated data on Sámi in Norway, explaining that in the absence of data, it is impossible to evaluate if Indigenous rights are upheld in various areas or to identify where interventions might be necessary. Historic efforts by States to record Indigenous Peoples have often ended badly, leaving a lack of trust in State institutions. EU General Data Protection Regulations also complicate the collection of ethnically disaggregated data. However, Dawson is confident that both concerns can be overcome with a respectful and inclusive model, including involvement of the Sámi Parliament. Tamara Krawchenko and Chris McDonald take up this theme, distinguishing data by Sámi and data about Sámi (p154), while calling for Indigenous data sovereignty.  They note that there is a fair amount of data on Sámi health but none on Sámi business, aside from reindeer-herding. Not only do these gaps make it impossible to evaluate Sámi activities properly, the choice of what data to gather in the first place also reinforces stereotypes about Sámi. Ingvild Åmot and Monica Bjerklund discuss early-years Sámi education in Norway through interviews demonstrating how Sámi kindergarten teachers transmit Sámi culture. They show how innovative teachers translate the vague provisions of Norwegian law into learning for their young students. Allard’s chapter, already introduced above, completes the volume.

The approach to the legal questions is primarily a doctrinal one, identifying and applying international legal norms to various case studies across Sápmi. This is both a strength and a weakness: by relying on established norms of international law, the authors provide strong grounds for future negotiations or litigation in defence of Sámi rights; but this reliance in turn privileges the authority of the State as the originator of international law, agreeing and defining (and limiting) the law regarding Indigenous Peoples. It does contain some insight into the political and historical contexts to explain some of the ongoing challenges facing Sámi today but it is clearly a book that is first and foremost about law and legal solutions. The chapters are relatively short and on point, at least for an academic text.

The chapters highlight the gap between international legal norms and their implementation but the selection of case studies leaves space to hope that Indigenous lawyers and politicians – and the national politicians and courts that ultimate decide on their claims – will build on cross-border experiences in defence of Sámi rights, as well as for Indigenous Peoples elsewhere. Also emerging from the pages, though perhaps more between the lines, is the trap of procedural rights which paper over substantive injustices. Excessive attention to Indigenous participation and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) can draw out decision-making process, exhaust communities’ professional and financial resources, and distract from other pressing community issues. The collection also presents some of the internal divisions within Sápmi that lead to inequalities amongst different groups of Sámi, and their origins in historic, colonial, racist laws. These are evident in the different treatment of reindeer herders and other Sámi as well as the exclusion of Sámi who are not members of reindeer herding collectives from hunting and fishing rights in Sweden (e.g., Torp).

In terms of coverage, the absence of any contributions regarding the part of Sápmi within the Russian Federation’s borders is unfortunate but forgivable given the current climate and the difficulty of cross-border collaborations following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2023, compounding the occupation and annexation of Ukraine in 2014. Future research might build in more comparative accounts, showing how the same international law pertaining to the same People is implemented differently, and possibly unequally, in different States.

The collection is a necessary addition to the reading list of any scholar of Indigenous rights, Arctic studies, energy law and policy, and environmental law. Its availability in open access format ensures its accessibility.

Francesca Dominello, State Apologies to Indigenous Peoples: Law, Politics, Ethics (Oxon: Routledge, 2025)

Book Review (editor review), , , ,

State Apologies to Indigenous Peoples is a comparative study of the State apologies to Indigenous Peoples in the countries now known as Canada and Australia. It draws from law, history, critical Indigenous studies, politics, and philosophy to deliver an interdisciplinary account of relevance to all these fields.

The argument is presented over seven inter-related chapters. The first chapter introduces the main claims and structure of the book. The second chapter gives a broadly philosophical take on the criteria for effective apologies, both individual and State/collective. Chapter three explains the historic and political contexts for the apologies in Canada and Australia and some of the responses before chapter four delves into more critical perspectives on the apologies. Both these chapters draw extensively on critiques by Indigenous leaders and scholars. Dominello then discusses “apology making as a relational process” in chapter five, exploring what might have made the apologies more meaningful and effective, in particular, a better centring of Indigenous Peoples. The final two chapters review the post-apology actions in Australia and Canada respectively.

Australia and Canada provide a good basis for comparison given many commonalities of their colonial histories and relations between Indigenous and settler Peoples. These include, in no particular order: that they are unions of former British (primarily) colonies which are still part of the Commonwealth and share the same formal Head of State (the monarch of the United Kingdom). They are federal systems. They have multiple, diverse Indigenous Peoples within their borders. State abuses of Indigenous Peoples are historic and ongoing, and both Canada and Australia systematically and forcibly removed native children from their families in an effort to assimilate them into the settler societies. However, in both cases, the State sanctioned child abductions and the abuses inflicted on the children in care are only one aspect of wider colonial policies including land and resource theft, criminalisation of Indigenous traditions, and acts of physical violence. Both States resisted Indigenous calls for an apology for some years before eventually delivering them and neither had yet endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the time the apologies were made.

However, there are some important differences between the States in respect of the relationships between the settler communities and Indigenous Peoples. Canada has a long history of treaty-making and treaty-breaking with First Nations and later Inuit and Métis while there are no treaties between Australia and Indigenous nations. Canada’s apology was ultimately made by the Conservative (right wing) Prime Minister Harper whereas in Australia, the Liberal (right wing) Prime Minister Howard refused to make an apology and it took the election of Labor (left wing) Prime Minister Rudd to make the apology, fulfilling a manifesto pledge. Canada’s apology was tied more closely to the litigation leading to the Residential Schools Settlement Act and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action whereas Prime Minister Rudd tried to establish a distance between its Bringing Them Home Report and calls for compensation.

Dominello brings to light the backward-looking and forward-looking elements of an apology. An apology necessarily refers to some past action for which the current speaker expresses regret – and, ideally, responsibility. But to be meaningful, it cannot simply attempt to sweep the past under the proverbial carpet but must include a commitment to revised attitudes and just actions in future. The apologies in these two States were fundamental aspects of wider reconciliation processes aimed at relationship-building between settler and Indigenous communities. They apologies incorporate a form of recognition justice, giving a message to Indigenous Peoples that their accounts are true; that they matter; and that the Indigenous Peoples were wronged. An apology-giver might seek forgiveness but an apology sincerely made cannot be conditional on the grant of forgiveness. Forgiveness is at the discretion of the recipients of the apology and in both cases, while Indigenous spokespersons indicated gratitude for the apologies, they did not universally offer forgiveness. Meaningful apologies must be followed by change and substantive reforms may be a precondition of forgiveness. Dominello’s review of the current conditions for Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Australia, not least the number of Indigenous children in out of home care, suggests that there is still a great deal of work to be done.

Dominello’s exploration of the critical responses of the Indigenous nations concerned and critical literature demonstrates how the apologies themselves reinforce the systems of colonial domination. Apologies are necessary because Indigenous Peoples must continue to live within (and subjugated by) the settler States and independence is not, currently at least, an option for them. Both apologies, but especially the Australian example, emphasised that the removals were lawful at their time. However, they were only lawful according to settler law and not according to the legal systems of the Indigenous nations on whom they were imposed. (Dominello also raises some doubts as to whether the child removals were lawful under international law.) In this way, the apologies further undermine Indigenous juridical sovereignty: State law is the only one that matters. The deliberate disconnection of the apologies from reparations also weakens their impact. Further, by focusing on the abuses of the child removal policies, the bigger picture of dispossession and domination is obscured. Dominello also explains how the Australian ‘Closing the Gap’ policy maintains settler standards as the norms to which Indigenous Australians should strive, further marginalising and undermining Indigenous values and negating any call for white Australia to change. Ultimately, the apologies promise change but reinforce the status quo. State sovereignty is uninterrupted, even reinforced.

The text has some limitations, as all such monographs do, and it is unfair to ask why a book did not cover other topics, such as reflections on or implications for other cases of settler colonialism. However, the author might have considered the implications of the respective federal systems for decision-making, responsibility, reparations and possible apologies, as well as the role, if any, of the monarch. The Queen made an apology to Tainui (in Aotearoa) in 1995 but a similar apology does not appear to be under consideration. Why not? A concluding chapter that draws together the main argument would have been another welcome addition. Potential next steps are explored addressed discursively through the text but there is no succinct summary. However, academic texts are probably not the best means of transmitting simple messages to policy-makers and the author may have decided to leave the discussion on future action to Indigenous leaders. The present reviewer was also surprised to find that the author does not include a position statement. Dominello being a highly experienced academic in this field, one can only assume that this was a conscious and deliberate omission.

In short, the book makes a worthy contribution to the growing scholarship on reconciliation efforts in (ostensibly) stable, Western democracies with troubled relations with Indigenous Peoples. Political leaders seeking reconciliation in good faith as well as scholars working in the intersecting academic fields should pay it close attention.

Kirsten Thisted and Ann-Sofie N. Gremaud (eds.), Denmark and The New North Atlantic: Narratives and Memories in a Former Empire (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2020)

Book review (editorial review), , , , ,

Denmark and The New North Atlantic – Narratives and Memories in a Former Empire presents a critical interdisciplinary study of a region marked by Danish imperialism and today affected by a renewed interest in the Arctic: the North Atlantic (i.e., coastal Norway, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands).

Edited by Kirsten Thisted and Ann-Sofie Gremaud, this two-volume book investigates how geopolitical and climatic changes reshape power dynamics and relationships in the North Atlantic. Throughout the book, historians, ethnographers, culture and communication scholars, literary theorists, and art historians from universities in Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Denmark, and Norway interrogate past narratives, emerging discourses and current relations in the nations of the North Atlantic.

The first section of the book offers a broad overview of the author’s assessment and help contextualise the following analyses. After briefly explaining that the North Atlantic is a porous and situated concept, Thisted and Gremaud highlight the influence of the past over the present and (perceived) future of the region. Indeed, political and emotional relations set during the Danish Empire seem deeply entrenched. While the emergence of the Arctic on the international scene contributes to their renegotiation, they appear to continue affecting current dynamics. Thisted and Gremaud further argue that these past relations and influences, often charged with racism, sexism and discrimination, are often overlooked. With this research, the authors thus hope to expose and reflect on these narratives and to participate in enabling a move forward.

Having set out the book’s objective, the second section synthesises the history of the Danish Empire in the North Atlantic and the development of distinct nations in the region. By replacing the national narratives of Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands in light of their relationship with the Danish Empire, the authors question – or at least nuance – the dominant narratives, allowing us to better comprehend current discourses and dynamics.

Following these rather general sections, the subsequent parts of the book draw on politics, ideology, art, literature, ecology and gender tropes to study the evolving narratives of the North Atlantic region. By recalling former power relations and past constructions, the different sections contextualise and question present developments and discourses in the nations of the North Atlantic, at regional, national, and global levels. Similar research questions are applied to the different nations, highlighting common features in the North Atlantic and interrogating political, social and cultural asymmetries. Section 3 thus analyses geographical perceptions and definitions of the North Atlantic, underlining how these are situated. Section 4 investigates the shaping of collective identities by assessing narratives of purity and authenticity and is directly complemented by Section 5, which questions gendered discourses and practices, by focusing on narratives of impurity or hybridity. Section 6 reflects on representations of the past as definers of an idealised future and Section 7, focused on political considerations and the use of natural resources, plays a concluding role by summarising that past dynamics and hierarchies continue to shape the present.

A few characteristics make this publication especially valuable. First, throughout the book, the authors use historical and local examples, especially artistic productions, to feed their analyses. These numerous inputs of local narratives make the reflections particularly relevant, founded and meaningful. It is very pleasant to read an academic work with such a diverse array of examples. While the different sections of the book tackle various subjects, the systematic use of local narratives connect them and make the book a coherent production.

Secondly, the application of a post-colonial lens to the narratives of the North Atlantic countries, and not only of Greenland, is a sensible and pertinent choice that also connects the different sections. As a matter of fact, Icelandic narratives are rarely analysed in light of the country’s colonial history, yet the authors here show how necessary it is to do so. By highlighting the countries’ shared colonial past and its influence on the post-colonial present; and by applying the same interrogations to Greenlandic, Icelandic, and Faroese narratives, the authors recognise and overcome the asymmetric hierarchies set by Danish imperialism.

Thirdly, the authors often take the time to clarify the academic concepts they use, even though most of them have been created and defined by other scholars. This explanatory process allows the reader to truly understand the book’s theoretical framework and the authors’ vision behind their analyses. As such, it adds to the meaningfulness of the book and underlines the authors’ desire to produce intelligible research.

On the other hand, the discussion around coastal Norway could have gained in being better incorporated to overall reflection. While Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands are almost always integrated into the analyses, coastal Norway only appears sporadically. Although it is explained that the North Atlantic has porous borders, it would have been interesting to consider narratives from coastal Norway more often, especially as many themes would have been applicable and relevant to that region.

Furthermore, Section 3 and its effort to analyse past and present geographical perceptions of the North Atlantic is underwhelming. Indeed, part of the development seems too conceptualised, thereby missing to represent felt geographies. While most of the book’s analysis is robust and backed by well-grounded arguments and examples, Section 3’s focus on the “Blues” – an emerging field of research which considers the ocean as an integral part of modern geography – as a means of analysing the North Atlantic’s relationship with its environment feels blurry and unfinished. Nevertheless, the themes approached in this section were interesting, and it will be important to follow up on the emergence of the “Blues” as an academic field in the coming years.

In sum, this book covers a very wide spectrum of notions and effectively manages to give the reader a general understanding of the North Atlantic’s current dynamics, hierarchies and discourses internally, regionally and globally. By constantly using local and concrete examples, the authors generally avoid developing a theoretical analysis with little meaning outside of the academic sphere. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the authors pinpoint the pervasiveness of the imperialist project in the North Atlantic nations. Finally, by highlighting the lasting effects of the asymmetrical power relations set out by the Danish Empire in the region, the authors successfully bring attention to deeply entrenched issues while avoiding any deterministic projections and recognising the agency of its inhabitants.

Ethical Challenges Facing Greenland in the Present Era of Globalization: Towards Global Responsibility

Conference proceedings (triple non-blind peer review), , , , , , , , ,

 

 

Introduction: Ethics and the Arctic

Recently, the developments of ethics and politics in the Arctic region have again become an issue for international discussion. One main issue is the problem of climate change and sustainability of the Arctic region. This problem is linked to the issue of exploitation of natural resources in the Arctic region, not at least in Greenland. Indeed, the general issue is how we should define ethics of the environment and sustainability as a general principle for the Arctic region. It is important to discuss what is at stake and how we define the problem in relation to the different participating stakeholders.

  Continue reading Ethical Challenges Facing Greenland in the Present Era of Globalization: Towards Global Responsibility →