From the Shadows of Civilisation and Racist Ideologies Towards Post-assimilation

Abstract

In all the countries they live in, the Sami people have gone through a long period of enlightenment projects driven by church and nationalistic assimilation aspirations—through hidden or more conscious processes. The ideologies behind these pursuits are based on white supremacist notions that the Sami should be civilised and put under a national state societal organisation. Due to this destructive history of ideologies, there are Sami generations who have at least partly lost their cultural and special linguistic features. Assimilation has affected the situation of Sami people and has caused, for example, poverty, mortality, limited access to education, abuse, a lack of self-respect, language shift, loss of culture and neocolonialism. To some extent, these processes have also weakened their cultural identity. Sami education’s purpose is to resolve a severe phenomenon in Sami society whereby structural power has challenged everyday practices. Sami education searches for practice-based institutional education in indigenous knowledge, traditions and cultural context. Sami education is a means to resolve the legacy of assimilation and, in particular, of language shift. Sami education based on a mediating role plays an important part in efforts to revive indigenous languages and cultures, aiming to gain wide access to education, health, economics, wellness, political representation and other factors essential to leading a good life. This chapter goes beyond the shadows of colonial practices; love, hope and sharing is intended to resolve the legacy of colonisation. The chapter is based on research material gathered in two phases. One part of the data was gathered in a Sami school history project, while another part of the research project concerned assimilation among Sami peoples.