Welcome to KTH Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment Higher Seminar with Dr Otso Kortekangas on ”Indigenous avant la lettre. The origins and livelihoods of the Sámi in European scholarly thought 1930–1960”

Time: Mon 2020-02-10 13.15 – 14.45

Lecturer: Otso Kortekangas, KTH, Div. History of Science, Technology and Environment and Stockholm University

Location: Teknikringen 74D, 5th floor, Seminar room

Short excerpt of the abstract:

My project studies the pre-history of the concept indigenous. It shows in
what ways Nordic and European scholars produced the Sámi as precisely indigenous before the term itself was widely in use. When this UN-backed concept gained ground during and following the anti- and postcolonial political processes of the 1960’s, the Nordic Sámi minority could tap in to the global indigenous identity movement.2 This was possible since both the scholarly and, with a certain delay, the popular understanding had gravitated to a direction where the Sámi were considered the original inhabitants of the northern areas of Fennoscandia. Ever since the indigenous label was introduced in the Nordic countries, it has become the first and foremost label and lens through which the Sámi population is studied.