Holding ground and loitering around: long-term research partnerships and understanding culture change dilemmas of indigenous Saami

Abstract

ABSTRACT Indigenous peoples live their modernity alongside majority populations and global change processes. This is the case with indigenous Saami who descend from a long lineage of nomadic reindeer-herding families and who now live and herd reindeer in and around the small tourism town of Kilpisjärvi (Gilbbesjávri), Finland. Saami reindeer nomadism was a highly mobile way of life at the turn of the twentieth century. However, as many Saami now live a more settled life, their culture is in constant danger of becoming engulfed by various developments, including tourism and the various forms of land use. This essay focuses on longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork in the region and on its dynamic changes. The essay illustrates the Saami struggle, not just with holding their ground with respect to other interest groups, but also with how their actions aim to maintain local visibility of their culture, while also ensuring a respect towards a right to agency and to culture change on their own terms. The essay’s methodological findings emphasise the importance of both long-term research partnerships and of participant observation in ethnographic work, stressing how attentive “loitering around” may lay the groundwork for other forms of research methodologies and auxiliary research materials.