Can the Sámi speak Now?

Abstract

This article analyses the on-going debate concerning Sámi definition in Finland, in order to examine some of the challenges that indigenous and minority voices are facing within the increasingly ‘postcolonial’ and ‘postmodern’ academia. Since the late 1960s, universities and institutions of higher education have been nodal points in a broad range of social and political struggles that have sought to decolonize and democratize science and knowledge. These struggles have challenged previous claims to truth and objectivity and paved way for the rise of a deconstructive research ethos, whose central objective is to bring voice to silenced, marginalized and subaltern subject positions. Although the academia might therefore appear today increasingly sensitive also for indigenous voices and research agendas, this article argues that the opposite might be the case: A research ethos, which explicitly aims to strengthen and empower the margin, can just as well work to silence indigenous voices, and end up supporting the agendas of the dominant society. In conclusion, I draw attention to four interlinked domains – context, truth, justice and politics – that need to be rethought, in order to reinstate the political and ethical vigour of critical research practices at large.