The mobility of islanders is always determined by both isolation and connections, a situation that is characterized in island studies and maritime history as paradoxical or dualistic. The questions of island mobility are combined with the substantial seasonal changes and ice conditions of the Bothnian Bay. The subject of the study is the island of Hailuoto, located in the Gulf of Bothnia and on the western coast of Finland, and the mobility of its inhabitants during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hailuoto was by turns surrounded by water or ice. Its inhabitants travelled by different means, and thus the space they used at sea and the difficulties they encountered varied according to the season. Ice conditions also caused periods of total isolation during rasputitsas twice a year, which were a difficult and unwanted position for islanders.
The main demographic problem facing the authorities of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is the imbalance between the external and internal migration flows. This imbalance resulted from the structural heterogeneity of spatial development. Thus, I analyzed the economic zones mentioned in official documents and the clusters obtained through Ward's method. Nevertheless, internal migration - currently the main form of migration - merits special attention. I focused on its share of arrivals in all arrivals and its share of departures in all departures. I also considered migration attractiveness of the municipal districts. It was assessed using migration succession and effectiveness ratios. The following results were obtained: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of internal departures in all departures was significantly lower than the share of internal arrivals in all arrivals, indicating the desire among many to emigrate. It was the level of economic development and economic specialization rather than geographical location that explained the persistent differences between municipal districts. The most attractive destination for internal migrants was Yakutsk. Additionally, I found that the four economically developed districts with a focus on external migration had quite high migration attractiveness, while the rest of the districts were not attractive for internal migrants.
This article contributes to ongoing critical discussions on the foundations and practice of Indigenous methodologies. It invites further dialogue on how certain tendencies within the paradigm shape research practices and how researchers might critically and reflexively engage with Indigenous methodologies. While Indigenous methodologies have played a crucial role in promoting decolonization, epistemic justice, and Indigenous empowerment, their application may also give rise to tensions and limitations that risk undermining these very goals. Drawing on foundational work in Indigenous methodologies and S & aacute;mi research, the article identifies three key tensions: dichotomization, essentialism, and latent ethnonationalism, and examines how these tendencies shape research practices, ethics, and epistemic authority. To address these tensions, the article proposes a "Meeting of the Three Tribes" framework, which emphasizes historical and relational entanglement and hybridity in S & aacute;pmi. Inspired by Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridity and Joseph Gone's concept of x-marks, this framework conceptualizes Indigenous knowledge as dynamic, negotiated, and historically situated rather than bounded and essentialized. By foregrounding coexistence, pluralism, and shared practices in S & aacute;pmi, the article advocates a critically reflexive, pluralistic, and dialogical methodological framework. Such an approach supports open and inclusive research and knowledge practices grounded in historical and cultural exchange.
At the turn of the seventeenth century Swedish Crown officials popularized a violent story describing how men called Birkarlar had long ago conquered the S & aacute;mi people and their homeland, S & aacute;pmi. Since then, the story has enjoyed widespread popularity in both Sweden and Finland, and it has been retold for a variety of political, academic, and artistic purposes by diverse Swedish, Finnish, and S & aacute;mi narrators. While the Birkarl conquest is today considered a fictional invention, the stories depicting it open an important window into a very real historical process: the construction - and deconstruction - of colonial power and ideologies in S & aacute;pmi. Drawing from the growing scholarship on the role of mediated violence in colonialism, this article scrutinizes how stories about a violent Birkarl conquest have participated in Swedish and Finnish colonialism in S & aacute;pmi from 1600 to the present. It argues that the stories have engaged with three important processes in S & aacute;pmi's colonial history: colonial state-building, efforts to define the place of the S & aacute;mi within the colonial state, and debates over the morality and persistence of colonial rule in S & aacute;pmi. Moreover, the stories reveal important connections between Swedish and Finnish colonial imagination and broader currents in European colonial ideologies.
To understand how different parties argued and acted in extraction projects in the S & aacute;mi homeland today known as S & aacute;pmi, this study examines the earliest phases of a hydropower permit case at Abelvattnet in Sweden during the 1960s. The investigation draws on the archive of the Water Court to answer questions regarding how discussions about the project's consequences for the S & aacute;mi and reindeer husbandry were brought forward and how arguments were met. How did the different parties argue in the matter of the permit and the consequences of the intervention, as well as possible compensations to the S & aacute;mi and reindeer husbandry? During the 1950s, hydropower expansion increased dramatically in northern Sweden. S & aacute;mi organizations as well as other NGOs mobilized to voice their opinions against the industrialization. While reindeer husbandry as well as other industries in society were on the brink of rationalization according to corporate economic principles, the policy towards the S & aacute;mi and reindeer herding was strongly influenced by paternalistic attitudes from the end of the nineteenth century. The legislation involved both panoptic power over reindeer herders who were placed under state supervision, and anoptic power for authorities to degrade, limit and make invisible the land use for reindeer herding. Legislation also defined the group of S & aacute;mi who would have access to the S & aacute;mi land rights, something that created a division within the S & aacute;mi people. This study illuminates the consequences of ignorance about what the external pressure in the form of hydropower expansion can pose, as well as the authorities' strategies to meet a supposedly ever-increasing need for energy.
