Perceptions of risk and uncertainty among Sámi women involved in reindeer herding in Northern Norway

Abstract

This paper examines Sámi women's responses to healthy living advice for health risk reduction, including how they think their health capital is administered within their way of life. Data was gathered from interviews with a group of Sámi women from reindeer herding families in northern Norway. Healthy living advice for health risk reduction provides medical discourses about how to live to reduce the risk of widespread diseases. Such discourses intervene into peoples' everyday lives, and become moral discourses. According to these interviews, the women responded to epidemiological risk assessments and guidelines by legitimating their attitudes and behaviours, but also by legitimating a distance between their practical risk assessments and the attitudes and behaviours the medical authorities promote. The study demonstrates that the women are creative users of health information. Their response to health information is shaped within their local material, cultural and social context, personal needs, and a need for cultural security on a collective level. The women experience responsibility for their own and their families' health capital.