Preface

Abstract

In the last few years the politics of collection, representation and curation of Sámi heritage in museums has received increased attention and is now engendering new opportunities and challenges for both museum theory and practice. In order to re ect critically on these processes, an international research conference entitled Rethinking Sámi Cultures in Museums was held at the University of Oslo in November 2014. This initiative was a response to a felt need to bring academics and museum professionals in contact to build upon and valorize research on Sámi collections and displays conducted in museums, colleges and universities throughout the Sápmi area and beyond. The conference attracted more than 60 participants and 17 papers were presented on topics such as: Early modern/colonial relations; collections and repatriation; Sámi materialities; representation, ethics and identity; and Sámi exhibitions. Five keynote speeches were held, by Christina Kreps, United States, Gunlög Fur, Sweden, Birgitta Fossum, Norway, Stein R. Mathisen, Norway, and Henrik Olsen, Norway. A compendium with the abstracts of the papers, a list of the participants and other information is available online. We hope that this initiative will support the development of a network among scholars and museum professionals in this area.