“A Rape of the Earth”

Abstract

Abstract This article is a Sámi feminist analysis of large-scale resource extraction in Sábme, the transnational Sámi territory spanning northern Fenno-Scandinavia and the Murmansk peninsula. Specifically, it centers on the mining of Indigenous land within the borders of the Swedish nation-state to explore the knowledge evolving from Sámi feminists engaged in the anti-mining struggle. Here, I argue that Indigenous epistemes—that is, the foregrounding of relationality and interdependency between land, humans, nonhuman beings, and the natural environment—are foundational to the research participants’ struggles against mining in Sábme. From within a Sámi knowledge system, mining entails fracturing the relational web of connection. Consequently, mining represents a multigenerational threat against the survival of Sámi body lands and lifeworlds.