Abstract
This article investigates the dynamics between hope and dispossession in the relations between Indigenous peoples and states. These relations, historically marked by colonial interventions, boast hopeful developments ranging from the recognition of rights to truth and reconciliation processes. Drawing on critical hope scholarship and research on contemporary colonialism, this article delves into the question of reconciliation and the (allegedly) reorganised Indigenous-state relations. Engaging with the state continues to be, in many ways, problematic for Indigenous peoples whose hopes often clash with those of the state. Even though experiences from completed truth and reconciliation processes around the world have been fraught with foundational shortcomings, the shortcomings have not discouraged Indigenous peoples from initiating and taking part in reconciliation. Embracing this global trend, three Nordic countries – Finland, Sweden and Norway – have each embarked upon a truth and reconciliation process with the Sámi people. Utilising the recent Nordic processes as reference points, this article reveals how states employ hope to govern their relations with the peoples, an aspect that has been neglected to date. In particular, it highlights how the element of time (integral to hope) and the clash of parties’ disparate hopes are key to understanding power asymmetries in these relations.
Keywords
Introduction
This article examines the dynamics between hope and dispossession in Indigenous-state relations. With heightened uncertainty sparking a growing search for hope in society at large, the idea(l) of hope has begun to figure significantly in these relations. Today these relations, historically highly asymmetrical and abusive, appear increasingly hopeful. Recent decades have seen developments such as land claim agreements, formal state apologies and truth and reconciliation processes (e.g. Cameron, 2015; Lightfoot, 2016; Niezen, 2017). Clearly, the contemporary emphasis on inclusion and recognition differs significantly from the civilising missions, forced relocations and assimilatory policies that marked the colonial past. Hope is one force that we find embedded in political, legal and moral changes. Echoing this trend, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, embraced the air of hope when he stated, ‘[W]e remain hopeful’ (Trudeau, 2017). While acknowledging the mistakes made in Indigenous-state relations in the past, he emphasised that there is hope by declaring, ‘[W]e can do better, and be better’ (Trudeau, 2017).
Despite the air of progress in Indigenous-state relations and changes in the global political position of Indigenous peoples, research has pointed out that many of the recent improvements fall short of dismantling what have become deep-rooted power settings (e.g. Alfred, 2005; Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2018; Simpson, 2014). As Indigenous scholarship has widely demonstrated, colonialism continues in shape-shifting forms (e.g. Corntassel, 2023; Coulthard, 2014; Simpson, 2017b). This research has highlighted that colonialism is not a singular past event but an enduring process and a structure that dispossesses the colonised. Studies in this vein include critical analyses of state apologies (Lightfoot, 2015), truth and reconciliation processes (Corntassel, 2023) and legal recognition (Young, 2020).
To expose the ways in which colonial states strive to retain their power, we draw on the evolving field of critical hope scholarship. By building on the insights on the prevalence of colonial practices and linking them with the growing scholarship on how hope and power mesh (e.g. Hage, 2016; Waldow et al., 2024b) we argue that the connection between hope and dispossession warrants further examination. In particular, we are interested in the burgeoning efforts to renegotiate and to start ‘afresh’ the relations between Indigenous peoples and states through truth and reconciliation processes (e.g. Guðmarsdóttir et al., 2021). The recent truth and reconciliation processes that the Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway have embarked on with the Sámi people – much in the global spirit of the day – act as a reference points for our engagement with hope and colonialism (e.g. Kortekangas et al., 2025; Skaar and Spitzer, 2024). Hope, as orientation to an improved future, figures strongly in reconciliation.
We interpret the Nordic steps towards reconciliation as prime examples of contemporary state politics that operates through hope. Despite their well-intentioned aims, the processes are beset with foundational challenges and disagreements. Indigenous peoples’ own hopes and agency affect reconciliation efforts and also engender resistance. As we see it, these points of friction highlight the need to scrutinise the (ab)use of hope in reconciliation. How are we to interpret the role of hope in truth and reconciliation processes? Can it be that the hopefulness inscribed in these processes lends itself to an ultimate aim of dispossession?
By examining the connections between hope and colonial practices as they play out in reconciliation, this article offers a critical account of the ways in which states attempt to (re)organise their relations with Indigenous peoples today. In particular, it elaborates how the element of time – integral to hope – and the parties’ disparate hopes are crucial to understanding power asymmetries in these relations.
Problematic relations
The relations between Indigenous peoples, states and global politics have been, and continue to be, problematic. As early as in in the 1920s Chief Deskaheh, representing the Six Nations of the Iroquois, approached the League of Nations with a petition (Indigenous Peoples’ Centre for Documentation, Research and Information, 2017). The submission cited the violation of Iroquois sovereignty and challenged Canada’s control over the lands and resources of the Iroquois. The petition stated, We have exhausted every other recourse for gaining protection of our sovereignty by peaceful means before making this appeal to secure protection through the League of Nations. (Petition to the League of Nations, cited in Corntassel, 2008: 110)
Chief Deskaheh was, however, never able to take the petition to the Assembly of the League of Nations in his time, for the peoples’ cause was deemed to be a domestic Canadian, not an international, matter (Corntassel, 2008: 110).
Global politics and states’ treatment of Indigenous peoples have undergone a rather significant change since. While Indigenous peoples’ claims for the recognition of their rights, protection and just distribution of resources have, in many ways, remained the same, they now have political arenas and legal avenues for seeking justice and redress (e.g. Dahl, 2012; Lightfoot, 2016; Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2018). Reflecting such change, Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, gave a speech at the first session of the recently established Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2002. Mr. Annan welcomed the Indigenous representatives by saying ‘you have a home at the United Nations’ (UN Secretary-General, 2002). It appeared that international politics had taken the Indigenous cause to heart.
The increased presence and agency of Indigenous peoples in international political arenas and the growing recognition of Indigenous rights have been seen as signalling a change in the organisation of international politics. Sheryl Lightfoot (2016), who has studied global Indigenous politics, argues that such a change is tantamount to a ‘subtle revolution’ in international politics and presents a fundamental threat to states. As Lightfoot (2016) describes the current setting, states engage in a ‘defensive struggle’, or resistance, whereby they strive to maintain their pro human rights image, yet, at the same time, stall any meaningful implementation of Indigenous rights. In the words of Lightfoot (2016), states engage ‘in particular patterns of resistance that are complex and often cunning’ when ‘fiercely defending the status quo’ (p. 19). However, despite the states’ unwillingness, Lightfoot takes the view that Indigenous peoples’ activism is bringing about gradual changes in global politics.
The changes on the international level have impacted national politics as recognition and inclusion have trickled down into debates on how to structure legal, political and economic relations between Indigenous peoples and states. Indigenous peoples have played a major role in demanding that states hear their claims, respect their rights and apply existent legal mechanisms to the full. There is great variation in the ways in which states have responded to these claims and (re)shaped their relations with Indigenous peoples. Questions such as autonomy, political participation, cultural self-determination, land and resource rights and rights to be consulted have figured centrally in these relations (e.g. Erueti, 2016; Tomaselli, 2016). The aim of such (re)structuring has been to recast the previous, unjust colonial relations as a more equal co-existence. However, fundamental issues remain unresolved. For example, the significance of state apologies for Indigenous peoples has been debated (Lightfoot, 2015). In an ‘age of apology’, states have been compelled to issue formal apologies; yet, the concrete consequences of such acts have remained obscure (Lightfoot, 2015). In the case of autonomy agreements, whether non-territorial or territorial, Indigenous peoples’ positions differ greatly across the world. Even though there has been progress in Indigenous self-government arrangements, challenges remain in implementing them (Tomaselli, 2016).
Indigenous scholarship views Indigenous-state relations and the role of Indigenous peoples in international politics in different ways. For example, Lightfoot (2016) goes as far as to argue that Indigenous peoples have succeeded in initiating significant changes in the international system at large. As she sees it, international political recognition and inclusion have supported Indigenous peoples’ claims for their rights. Involvement in global political arenas has provided the peoples much-needed leverage to confront the states in which they live and even to invoke international mechanisms to question the authority of national policies. The thoughts of Dale Turner (2006) echo those of Lightfoot’s in that he affirms Indigenous peoples’ need to participate more effectively in the political and legal systems of the state in order to blunt colonialism and to gain respect for Indigenous worldviews. Turner, however, emphasises that those advocating for Indigenous peoples’ claims must be well grounded in the practices of their own communities.
More critical accounts of Indigenous peoples’ involvement in state structures prioritise the peoples’ own political and legal systems and community-based action. This line of Indigenous scholarship emphasises the need for Indigenous peoples to de-centre the state and engage in the resurgence of their communities (e.g. Corntassel, 2023; Coulthard, 2014). Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark (2023: 3) notes that while Indigenous resurgence necessitates caution and scepticism towards the state, it often still requires engaging with the state and forming settler alliances. Offering a legal perspective, scholars such as Irene Watson (2015) have called for centring Aboriginal law instead of the states’ legal mechanisms, which cannot, and will not, recognise the sovereignty of Indigenous nations. Overall, as Taaiake Alfred (2005), Jeff Corntassel (2021) and Audra Simpson (2014) have stated, the liberal rights framework and the politics of recognition of the state do not protect the peoples or allow Indigenous nationhood. Critiquing relations and inclusion that take place on state terms, Chelsea Watego (2021: no pagination) poignantly notes, We are granted entry into their institutions only when said entry is considered unlikely to destabilise the narrative of the world they have constructed for themselves, while making them appear inclusive and welcoming.
As critical scholarship has brought to the fore, colonial states use various tactics of diversion and supposedly transformed political vocabularies that, in effect, continue colonial mentalities (e.g. Alfred, 2005; Coulthard, 2014; Lightfoot, 2016; Simpson, 2014). Dispossession is one of the terms used to describe this process. It has been described as a recursive practice built on a particular understanding of property and possession that results in a loss for and the displacement of those with different ways of relating to land (see Nichols, 2020 for an extensive theorisation of the notion of dispossession and the possibilities for Indigenous resistance). Emphasising that colonialism is not a historical incident but ‘a series of processes for the purposes of dispossessing’, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (2017b: 45) urges that critical attention be paid to Indigenous-state relations. She points out that state-engendered promises of change can be appealing to Indigenous peoples: It can appear or feel as if the state is operating differently because it is offering a slightly different process to Indigenous peoples. Goodness knows, we’d all like to feel hopeful. We’d like to see a prime minister smudging or acknowledging he is on Indigenous territory and have that signal a significant dismantling of settler colonialism. This is attractive to us because we know we experience colonialism as a series of entrenched processes and practices, particularly in our local place-based realities, and within our own thought systems we know that we can create change by shifting the practices with which we are engaged [. . .] when the practices of settler colonialism appear to shift, it can appear to present an opportunity to do things differently, to change our relation to the state. (Simpson, 2017b: 45–46, italics added)
Simpson’s (2017b) observations are an insightful reflection on the connections between changing political relations – national or international – and hope. The promise of progress encourages hope, yet, is also bound up with colonial structures. Indeed, both colonialism and hopefulness envelop the relations between Indigenous peoples and states.
Hope as a critical lens
We understand hope as a timely discussion in critical theory and a conceptual lens through which to examine the (re)arrangements in the relations between Indigenous peoples and states. The centrality of hope’s enhanced political purchase is vitiated by its elusive, vague and ‘soft’ appearance (Hage, 2003: 10). Our interest in hope goes well beyond the semantics of the word itself to encompass the implicit and subtle ways in which it signals progress or good will, Indigenous-state relations being prime sites of such developments.
There has been a growing interest in hope in social scientific research at large especially since the turn of the millennium. The concept of hope features in a range of scholarship focusing on various social, political, environmental and legal struggles (e.g. Dinerstein, 2015; Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2022; Miller and Crane, 2018; Ottendörfer, 2019). An increasing body of research has also broached hope as a methodology for social change or critique (e.g. Duggan and Muños, 2009; Eagleton, 2015; Miyazaki, 2004). The affective dimensions of hope have been studied, on both the individual and collective level (e.g. Anderson, 2016; Massumi, 2015). Among other interests, scholars have focused on the essence of hope and its sources in human life (e.g. Lear, 2008; Zigon, 2009) and on hope as a social and institutional expectation (e.g. Hage, 2003; Nuijten, 2004). Hope has also increasingly started to figure in international relations scholarship, ranging from debates on the Anthropocene (Waldow et al., 2024b) to questions of justice and rights (Ottendörfer, 2019) as well as security (Tängh Wrangel, 2019).
Hope scholarship has taken a variety of directions and interpreted the role and significance of hope diversely (e.g. Leshem, 2024). Among the line of research one may distinguish philosophical inquiries elucidating the meaning and basis of hope, examinations of hope as a method or analytical category, studies of hope as an affect, and analyses of hope as a conduit of power (Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2021). In discussing the role of hope in the Anthropocene, Waldow et al. (2024a) adopt three angles: agency, governance and negation. As they see it, in addition to hope’s agency-bolstering capacity, it enables ‘regulatory order and legitimation’ (Waldow et al., 2024a: 3). Their treatment of this governance dimension in turn includes critical analyses of the ways in which ‘hope can be misappropriated in policy approaches’ (Waldow et al., 2024a: 3). The focus on negation brings forth the connections of hope with disruption and deconstruction.
Common to theorisations of hope is reference to Ernst Bloch’s (1986) work and especially to his notion of ‘Not-Yet’, a process of becoming and creating something new. Bloch’s main work, The Principle of Hope, synthesises hope and utopia. In Blochian thinking, reaching to the future is an integral part of humanity, producing our present and also the possibility for future transformation. Hopes may be mere illusions, but even then they reveal something real in the world and the desired future (Boldyrev, 2023). Bloch’s work has contributed to critical theory – through his profound faith in hope and its capacity to emancipate – although his commitment to utopia was not always appreciated by his peers (Moir, 2018).
It is particularly where people pursue a better life that hope has demonstrated its gravity (see Nairn et al., 2022, on youth activism; Kleist and Thorsen, 2017, on migration; Ottendörfer, 2019, on victims of civil war). For Indigenous peoples, hope has been central to the exercise of their sovereignty amid colonial intrusions and to pursuing their rights vis-à-vis states. Jonathan Lear’s (2008) study on the Crow Nation demonstrates how Indigenous peoples have not only succeeded in maintaining their hope, but have been able to survive as peoples by doing so. In the historical era of colonial dispossession – the seizing of Indigenous lands, violation of the peoples’ cultures and livelihoods and use of physical violence against them – it was critical for Indigenous peoples to retain hope. More recently, hope and the need to remain hopeful have marked the peoples’ efforts to regain their lands and autonomy (e.g. Dinerstein, 2015; Miyazaki, 2004). Even where there has been very little evidence of progress, Indigenous peoples’ persistent hopes have enabled them to sustain their claims and thus worked to their benefit. On balance, Indigenous peoples, with their proven capacity to withstand and survive colonial interventions, are perceived as particularly capable of harnessing hope, even to radical ends (e.g. Haro, 2010; Lear, 2008).
While previous research has highlighted the many connections between hope and power and the ways in which hopes can facilitate transformation, work on the political utility of hope has tended to be one-sided (Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2021; Waldow et al., 2024a). There is an inclination to perceive hope as empowering and to understand it as working for the less advantaged, as if it were only a force for good, enabling emancipation to the exclusion of other ends (for a critique of scholarship focusing on ‘likeable’ hopes, see Jansen, 2016).
As much as hope may facilitate change, it can equally stall progress and thwart hoped-for improvements. This equivocality is emblematic of hope, as it may always present both of these facets. Studying the connections between hope and power, Ghassan Hage (2003, 2016) has noted how hope is integral to, and even inseparable from, the power structures of contemporary societies. He points out that hope and its social distribution is strongly linked to exploitation and inequality, as the hopes of some groups may be realised at the expense of the hopes of others (Hage, 2016). Accordingly, some hopes are politically encouraged while others are purposefully ignored and muted. Crucially, then, hope is not only a force bolstering the agency and resistance of the less privileged, but rather one that those in power can harness to serve their own agendas. Rebecca Coleman and Debra Ferreday (2010: 315) capture this dynamic succinctly when they argue that the conventional perception of hope as solely positive effectively hides its more sinister workings.
It is the less noble side of hope that we have set out to examine in this article. Our approach aligns with Waldow et al. (2024a) view on the necessity to analyse the dark side of hope. As they put it, the scope of challenges that we face today and the disillusionment with progress have led hope to undergo ‘a radical and a “dark” transformation, from the margins to the center of political thought’ (Waldow et al., 2024a: 10). Accordingly, we argue that applying such a conceptualisation of hope to Indigenous-state relations – ones boasting hopeful goals of reconciliation – is pertinent.
Reconciling Indigenous-state relations
Recently, states have increasingly recognised the rights of Indigenous peoples and acknowledged historical wrongdoings. The many milestones of international and national recognition have, despite the fraught history, sparked hope that what used to be hierarchical relations are transforming into ones of equality and justice. These developments are taking place in the wake of a broader, liberal politics in which minorities, including Indigenous peoples, are gaining increased recognition politically and legally (e.g. Anaya, 1996; Taylor, 1994). For example, the United Nations has adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and states have, to a growing extent, demonstrated remorse over their past colonial policies by delivering formal apologies and initiating a range of reconciliation processes (e.g. Lightfoot, 2016; Regan, 2010). As we see it, truth and reconciliation processes are part of these hope-instilling developments in Indigenous-state relations.
As mechanisms of transitional justice, truth and reconciliation processes – whether completed or ongoing – embody the efforts of societies to move forward from past abusive regimes to equitable co-existence between historically disadvantaged peoples and society at large (e.g. Guðmarsdóttir et al., 2021). The aims are wide-ranging, as Augustine Park (2020) notes, including ‘vindicating victims, healing, accountability, combating impunity, [and] re-narrating histories’ (p. 271). Reconciliation efforts are enveloped in the promise of a better future – in a word, hope.
Truth and reconciliation processes were first initiated in societies that were transitioning from internal conflict or undemocratic conditions to peace and inclusive democracy, a well-known example being the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Skaar and Spitzer, 2024; Wiebelhaus-Brahm, 2019). Recently, truth and reconciliation commissions have been established in Western democracies, ones with no comparable history of conflict or racial segregation, but which have admitted to repressing Indigenous peoples living within their borders (Skaar and Spitzer, 2024: 344–345). Such truth and reconciliation processes have been referred to as ‘non-transitional’ (Skaar and Spitzer, 2024). The most frequently cited example is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which was mandated to investigate the former residential school system and its impact on Indigenous individuals and communities. The Commission was established in 2007 and it delivered its final report in 2015 (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015). The country’s investments in the process, in both money and time, have been considered laudable. As Elin Skaar and Aaron John Spitzer (2024) note, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is ‘by far the most academically and publicly prominent of the non-transitional truth commissions’ (p. 349), and has had the greatest impact politically around the world.
Bringing unjust histories to light has entailed a long struggle for Indigenous peoples; indeed, their role in getting the current reconciliation processes underway has been instrumental. The transformed political spirit that now emphasises recognition and inclusion has also made it possible for Indigenous peoples’ claims to be heard. For example, Ronald Niezen (2017) has noted how the public shaming of Canada made it impossible for the state to avoid initiating the process. The shame stemmed from accumulating evidence of child sexual abuse in the residential school system. The magnitude of the atrocities uncovered was such that the state was compelled to act and embark on reconciliation.
If the Canadian truth and reconciliation process has paved the way for others around the world, it has also given rise to an abundance of criticism. Despite its well-intentioned aims, many have noted that its actual achievements have, so far, fallen short of the initial hopes (e.g. Corntassel, 2023; Edmonds, 2016; George, 2020). For example, Niezen (2017) points to the limited scope of the process under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose purview included only certain residential schools. This starting point in itself meant that the Commission was only looking for particular truths and testimonies. What is more, the structural violence of the residential schools was left unaddressed because of the victim-centred approach of the process. On the basis of these omissions alone, Niezen (2017) concludes that genuine reconciliation was not achieved, for the fundamental structures on which the settler colonial state rests were left unqueried.
Providing a more general critique on the restorative possibilities of truth and reconciliation processes, Rachel George (2020) talks about the ‘performativity of reconciliation’ (p. 88) (see also Muldoon, 2023 for a biopolitical reading of the ‘spectacle’ of state repentance, one example being reconciliation commissions). In her account, truth and reconciliation commissions are problematic in how they deal with ‘truth’. As she puts it, these processes reduce ‘harm to singular past policies’, whereby ‘[t]ruth becomes constructed as within the past, devoid of connection to ongoing colonial territorial theft and violence’ (George, 2020: 97). Such a construction of ‘truth’ obscures the continued existence of settler colonial structures by relegating them to the past. Offering a similar critique, Park (2020) notes how transitional justice mechanisms can work as a strategy ‘to render colonialism a thing of the past’ (p. 268). This works for the benefit of the settler colonial state as part of the performance of reconciliation is that it confines violence and injustice to a particular past ‘instance’ that the state can handle. Contrary to what should lie at the heart of genuine reconciliation, as George (2020) notes, this ‘packaging of injustices into a neat box that the state government is able to deal with makes true justice for our communities impossible’ (p. 101). Achieving genuine reconciliation would thus call for a revolution rather than mere restoration (Schaap, 2007).
Aimée Craft and Paulette Regan (2020) provide another critical take on the meaning of reconciliation. As they see it, there is a discrepancy between how reconciliation is perceived by states and by Indigenous peoples. Referring to Canada, Craft and Regan (2020) observe how the government ‘appears to believe that reconciliation entails Aboriginal peoples’ accepting the reality and validity of Crown sovereignty’ (p. xiii), whereas for Indigenous peoples attaining reconciliation with the state means affirmation of Indigenous sovereignty. Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel (2023: 149) also notes how reconciliation can serve colonial functions, maintain the status quo and prioritise the territorial integrity of the state. Furthermore, as he sees it, it ‘directs community attention away from regenerating relationships with nationhood, homelands, and the natural world’ (Corntassel, 2023: 149). Such differences and conflicting interpretations constitute a fundamental challenge to achieving reconciliation.
The shortcomings of completed and ongoing truth and reconciliation processes have not, however, deterred marginalised groups in general from initiating and engaging in them. It is well worth pondering why the appeal of reconciliation is so strong. As we see it, it is precisely because of the hope embedded in reconciliation efforts that makes them extremely difficult to dismiss. The Nordic countries offer a topical and interesting reference point for querying the hopes that are invested in reconciliation.
Truth and reconciliation in Finland, Sweden and Norway
Finland, Sweden and Norway are recent examples of states’ admitting to the injustices of the past and to deciding to pursue a reconciled future with Indigenous peoples (e.g. Skaar and Spitzer, 2024; Szpak and Bunikowski, 2022; on the Greenland Reconciliation Commission, see Andersen, 2020). The Sámi – a people who live across the three states – have played an instrumental role in initiating the reconciliation processes, as demonstrated by the active engagement of the Sámi parliaments in each of the three countries. As early as 2004, the Sámi Parliamentary Council, a cooperative cross-border body for the Sámi, recommended establishing a truth and reconciliation commission (Kortekangas et al., 2025). As Astrid Nonbo Andersen (2024) observes, Sámi political institutions have furthered these processes as part of the ‘larger struggle by Indigenous Peoples and minorities to counter existing historical narratives, to master their own pasts and write them on their own terms’ (p. 95). All in all, these processes have created hope for relationships enriched with a new historical awareness and respect between the Sámi, the states and the society at large in the three countries.
The Canadian experiences have acted as inspiration and also provided a model for the process in all of the Nordic reconciliation efforts (Skaar and Spitzer, 2024). Indeed, the work done in Canada has become a yardstick of sorts for subsequent non-transitional truth and reconciliation commissions. However, despite this shared source of inspiration, the processes in Finland, Sweden and Norway have each been shaped by national contingencies of their own.
The proposal to establish a truth and reconciliation commission in
The Finnish Commission has been mandated to ‘identify and assess’ the past and present discrimination against the Sámi and the assimilatory policies of the state. One of its objectives is to investigate ‘how these injustices affect the Sámi people and their communities today’. In addition, it is expected to ‘raise awareness about the Sámi’ and to suggest how ‘to promote links between the Sámi and the state of Finland’. The five commissioners comprise two selected by the government, two by the Sámi Parliament and one by the Skolt Village Assembly. The Commission was originally tasked to submit its final report to the government, the Sámi Parliament and the Skolt Village Assembly by the end of November 2023, but was later given an additional two years for its work (Finnish Government, 2023; Truth and Reconciliation Commission Concerning the Sámi People, n.d.).
Even when the Commission was being established, the process met with ambivalent reactions. Rauna Kuokkanen (2020: 297) summarises the hopes and doubts of the Sámi community in the following terms: on the one hand, many Sámi were hoping for a public process where the state’s past and present wrongdoings and their impact on individuals and communities would be exposed and discussed; on the other, there was a deep-seated suspicion that the state was not genuinely invested in reconciliation. The latter reservation is also reflected in the scarce resources given to the process, both in terms of funding and time (YLE News, 2022). Putting the mistrust into words, Kuokkanen (2020) asks, ‘[H]ow can we trust the state as a party to reconciliation while for the past several years, it has been backtracking on (already limited) Sámi rights, legislation and established state obligations toward the Sámi?’ (p. 294).
Indeed, the continuous slighting of Sámi rights by the Finnish state has exacerbated this lack of trust. Prime examples of the state’s procrastination include its continued failure to ratify ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries and to renew the Act on the Sámi Parliament, both of which instruments would strengthen Sámi self-determination (The Sámi Parliament, 2023). A recent report prepared to support the Commission’s still ongoing work notes how the state’s lack of commitment to further the rights of the Sámi during the past decade forms a significant hindrance to the success of the truth and reconciliation process (Scheinin, 2024).
The reconciliation process in
A notable difference to other similar processes is that the Swedish Commission only has the word ‘truth’ in its name. The Sami parliament’s rationale for emphasising truth at this stage was that once the Truth Commission’s recommendations are met, reconciliation can follow (Truth Commission for the Sami People, n.d.). Two years prior to the truth process for the Sámi, Sweden had established a separate commission for other minorities which had experienced assimilation and discrimination, namely the Finnic-speaking Kven, Tornedalians and Lantalaiset (Andersen, 2024).
In
The Norwegian Commission has met with criticism on multiple aspects of its work and the ways in which it was set up (Skaar and Spitzer, 2024: 354) The Commission’s investigations cover the period from the 1850s to the present, which has been considered too long. Misgivings have also been expressed about the Commission’s mandate; some consider it too broad with the array of themes it covers. Moreover, the inclusion of several groups into the Commission’s purview – the Sámi and national minorities – has raised concerns about its work. The long time span, broad mandate and inclusive structure fostered such high expectations of the Commission’s work that delivering on them was very challenging (Skaar and Spitzer, 2024). Furthermore, as Skaar and Spitzer (2024: 359) go on to note, the Norwegian Commission has been called ‘the silent commission’ or ‘the invisible commission’ due to its low profile and invisibility in the eyes of the media and the society at large.
Even now when only one of the processes has been completed, several questions and concerns have arisen. A number of shortcomings can be cited that have impaired the truth and reconciliation work in all three countries. Otso Kortekangas, Natan Elgabsi and Malin Arvidsson (2025) point out how the separate national commissions fail to recognise the cross-border nature and history of the Sámi, their livelihoods and communities. In order for Finland, Sweden and Norway to take full responsibility for the past, ‘a fuller embracement’ of transnationality would be required (Arvidsson, 2025: 2). Moreover, the majority population’s lack of engagement, that is, ‘majority complacency’, proved to be a challenge in all of the Nordic processes. As Malin Arvidsson (2025) puts it, ‘the majority is unaware of the consequences of the assimilation policies and therefore does not see the need for a TC [Truth Commission]’ (p. 5). Notwithstanding, the truth and reconciliation processes in each country continue to uphold the promise of renewed relations between the Sámi and the states.
Hopeful tactics of dispossession
It is evident that truth and reconciliation processes, among other political and legal developments, embody hopes for improved Indigenous-state relations. At the same time, it is also evident that colonial relations endure and have a bearing on the present. How is one to make sense of the simultaneous presence of hope – signals of progress – and ongoing dispossession in the relations between Indigenous peoples and states? Instead of seeing hope as an emotion attached to Indigenous-state relations, we suggest problematising the ways in which hope works to arrange them. As we see it, such hope has become a tool for governing structures and processes in these relations. This means asking how the practices of colonial states that signal hope can perpetuate dispossession.
One of the interesting dynamics between hope and dispossession is the question of time. Critical Indigenous scholarship and reconciliation research, as well as research on hope and power, have all put forward the need to disentangle time and colonial practices (Corntassel, 2023; George, 2020; Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2024; Little and Maddison, 2017; Povinelli, 2011; Simpson, 2017b). Truth and reconciliation processes are premier cases where states and Indigenous peoples are engaged in negotiations over the meaning of past colonial time and its repercussions in the present. Also debated in the processes is how much time commissions and other bodies are given to bring to light and assess past injustices. The hope is that, with time, reconciliation will improve relations among Indigenous peoples, states and societies at large.
Truth commissions in general have been criticised for ‘confirming a characteristically modernist disjuncture between past and present’ (Bevernage, 2010: 115–116, see also Little and Maddison, 2017: 150, on the simplification of historical injustice and time). In particular, the emphasis on the past in reconciliation has been seen as problematic. Glen Coulthard (2014) offers a fundamental critique of the typical temporal frame of reconciliation in which he claims that the present is ignored by focusing on the past. In his words, reconciliation aims to overcome the ‘legacy of past abuse’, while leaving ‘the abusive colonial structure itself’ unexamined (Coulthard, 2014: 109). A similar type of critique is put forward by George (2020) in the Canadian context, where, in her view, the totality of the settler colonial project was reduced ‘to singular past policies’ (p. 97). In doing so, the state succeeded in making a break between the past and the present (see also Arvidsson, 2020, on state redress for historical injustice). In this vein, Katherine Lu (2017) observes that in focusing on the past, reconciliation processes ask Indigenous peoples to be ‘reconciled to a contemporary injustice’ (p. 200).
What is more, reconciliation may foreclose future possibilities. The desire in reconciliation processes to put the past behind and to envision improved – allegedly ‘stronger and healthier’ – futures is, in Corntassel’s (2023: 149) words, an attempt by the colonial states at a ‘historical reboot’ vis-à-vis Indigenous peoples. In a similar view, George (2020: 101) has noted how the disconnection in reconciliation between past, present and future not only ‘denies current and ongoing injustices’ but, even more critically, denies ‘further claims for restitution’. Another complication is the linear perception of time used to structure reconciliation processes. As Simpson (2017b) points out, ‘Indigenous thought does not dissect time into past, present and future’ (p. 213). Accordingly, a linear view of time often clashes with Indigenous worldviews (Corntassel, 2023: 150).
Overall, the question of time and its control has been central in colonial relations between Indigenous peoples and states. Lisa Stevenson (2014), who has studied the Canadian Arctic and the impacts of settler colonialism on the Inuit way of life, poignantly asks, ‘Is it possible that [. . .] territory is a minor trophy of colonialism – when compared to the domination of time?’ (p. 133). Her critical question stems from her analysis of settlers’ control over Inuit life in the past and in the present. As she points out, the management of time meant that the Inuit were trained and disciplined to live by settlers’ time. If the Inuit way of life had previously depended on hunting, cooking and sleeping when the conditions were right, the colonisers turned time into an ‘extractable resource’. Suddenly, as Stevenson notes, time became a commodity, something that could be used poorly or wisely. Indigenous peoples in particular were seen as needing education on how to use this commodity ‘appropriately’. In summing up her observations, Stevenson highlights the centrality of time and its control for the settler colonial power in extending its regime.
More broadly, previous scholarship has recognised the desire of colonial powers to ‘steal’ the time of those it seeks to dispossess. For example, Joronen (2017) points out how the ‘spaces of waiting’ created by the settler colonial state amount to an ability to ‘steal time’. In a similar way, Folúkẹ́ Adébísí (2023), dissecting the roots of Euro-modern law and its complicity with colonial structures, talks about the ‘robbery of time’. She notes the fundamental ways in which the time of the colonised is determined by the exigencies of dispossessive structures. As she puts it, drawing on Coates (2015), the question is not only about the robbery of time but ‘the robbery in and with time’ (Adébísí, 2023: 120). This ‘manoeuvring of time’ upholds dispossession in the present, and we argue that hope is part and parcel of that use of power.
It is apt here to return to the question of hope and its political purchase in contemporary colonial relations. Hope, as an orientation to the future, proffers expectations of progress. While Indigenous peoples’ own hopes have enabled them to persist and resist (Haro, 2010), states have also been able to exploit hopeful future visions. As Hage (2003) has emphasised, drawing on research looking at the workings of hope in society, the promissory mode of organising societies benefits the state apparatus. Offering a concrete example, Monique Nuijten (2004) discusses the state’s use of hope in land conflicts between peasants and private land-owners in Mexico. She demonstrates how, paradoxically, the ‘hope-generating machine’ of the state and its bureaucracy operates to govern and discipline the rights claims of the peasants. In practice, as Nuijten (2004) points out, the result is that ‘[t]he bureaucracies produce endless openings, documents, stamps and maps in a bewildering world of fantasy’ (p. 210). By ‘fantasy’, Nuijten refers to the fact that the hope-laden visions encouraged by the state never materialise. In a similar vein, with reference to international investigative commissions in Palestine, Lori Allen (2021) talks about ‘false hope’. Describing the dynamic between oppression and hope, she notes how there always appears to be a ‘next time’ with ‘new opportunities for meaningful progress towards liberation and freedom’ (Allen, 2021: 28). Yet these opportunities never amount to more than new reports and investigative commissions.
The modus operandi of the state bureaucracy is to keep hope alive; it does so by leaving processes open and not offering closure. Indeed, protraction and distraction feature as ways in which states engage with Indigenous peoples (Corntassel, 2023; Povinelli, 2011; Watego, 2021). For example, Elizabeth Povinelli (2011) demonstrates, building on ethnographic work in Australia, how the state compels Indigenous peoples to ‘persist in potentiality’ (p. 128). It is a position where the realisation of state-sanctioned rights is repeatedly suspended, but a hope is sustained that someday those rights will be realised. Through this continuous openness, the state is always at liberty to promise something more and better, keeping those seeking their rights hoping and relying on the state. As we see it, the hope-laden ways in which states engage with Indigenous peoples today fall on a continuum of colonial practices that tamper with and hijack the time of the colonised. Even though hope and its future-driven dynamics figure centrally in Indigenous-state relations, hope’s political purchase has remained unstudied.
Indeed, one need not look any further than the Nordic developments to argue that encouraging hope in efforts such as reconciliation and the future scenarios they create is a very beneficial and cost-effective political tactic. By engaging in reconciliation processes, Finland, Sweden and Norway have fulfilled a current criterion for a liberal pro-human rights state. The countries can demonstrate that they are among the progressive states in their dealings with Indigenous peoples, regardless of the outcome of the reconciliation efforts. However, as criticism of the completed process in Norway shows, instilling or amplifying hopes is not a commitment to their fulfilment. For example, the completion of the process has not solved the pressing juridical issues that the Sámi have (Andersen et al., 2023). Critical voices have also been raised on the timing of these processes to coincide with a period when the Sámi are struggling for their rights to land and water, perhaps to increasing extent (Arvidsson, 2025; Sønneland and Lingaas, 2023). The situation on the ground, as it were, demonstrates how truth and reconciliation processes can be at odds with the hopes of just and rewrought Indigenous-state relations.
Discordant hopes
Despite the criticism, truth and reconciliation processes still hold appeal. Indeed, as Simpson (2017b) notes, certain ways which in states engage with Indigenous peoples are ‘attractive’ as they ‘can appear or feel as if the state is operating differently because it is offering a slightly different process’ (p. 45). Simpson’s observation reveals that Indigenous peoples themselves recognise the ways in which the state exercises its power through manoeuvres that encourage hope and hopefulness. There are however, highly varying views on how to perceive the alleged hopefulness in Indigenous-state relations.
A number of Indigenous scholars have emphasised Indigenous resurgence and community-based action to the extent of turning away from state-based structures (e.g. Alfred, 2005; Coulthard, 2014). In contrast, the positive reading of the contemporary developments has emphasised the possibility of Indigenous peoples effecting change in state-based political structures, including global politics (Lightfoot, 2016). Lightfoot (2020) has even raised the question whether it might in fact be counterproductive for Indigenous peoples to steer their actions away from states. In her view, there is potential for positive change within state structures, and one should allow the time required for that change instead of surrendering to pessimism. Offering a different perspective, Audra Simpson (2017a) emphasises the importance of ‘refusal’. In her view, Indigenous peoples’ opportunities for change open up precisely at the moment when they turn away from states. Turning away from a state and refusing its offer ‘is a technique, is a possibility’ (Simpson, 2017a: 29). Simpson (2017a) adds that refusal is always a risk, as its consequences cannot be fully foreseen, but that it is nevertheless necessary in order to avoid the ‘conceit of easy politics’ orchestrated by states.
As a critique of the type of ‘easy politics’ that states exercise, Chelsea Watego (2021) has titled one of the chapters of her book Another Day in the Colony ‘fuck hope’. Exposing the fraudulence of hope in colonial relations, she insightfully notes: But this is the function of hope in a colonial-settler state. Like role models, capacity-building agendas, reconciliation action plans and an Indigenousness derived from nowhere, hope offers up change without change. This is why colonisers are so insistent we have it – hope is not an enabler of our existence, but of theirs. (Watego, 2021, no pagination)
Watego (2021) argues that hope should be replaced with nihilism. Retiring hope ‘is not a matter of pessimism’ but, as she maintains, ‘accepting the truth of the limitations of this place offers us far more promise than hope ever has’. In Watego’s (2021) words, taking nihilism as a starting point is ‘to be more strategic with the sacrifices we are prepared to make, and demand more from those we once invested our hopes in’. These observations of hope’s uselessness echo insights from African American studies examining the struggles of Black people for freedom in state frameworks today (Walcott, 2021; Warren, 2015). As Rinaldo Walcott (2021) points out, the lives of Black people seem to abide in a condition where freedom ‘is both belated and always just ahead of us’ (p. 5). For Black people, this means that juridical emancipation has been achieved, but factual emancipation and freedom are yet to come. Warren (2015) also points out the ‘devastating logic of political hope’ (p. 218) that promises betterment and redress but ends up perpetuating the suffering of those that need such developments the most.
As Tuck and Yang (2012) have pointed out in the context of settler colonialism, ‘let[ting] time do its thing’ works for the colonial ‘desires to erase’ (Tuck and Yang, 2012: 9). It is evident that hope contributes to ‘time doing its thing’. Indeed, it is worth asking whether investing hopes in the state, for example in truth and reconciliation, is ‘wasted time’ that caters to the needs of the coloniser (Watego, 2021). The Nordic processes demonstrate that it is very much an open question whether the region’s truth and reconciliation processes are ‘successful’ and for whom. Significant issues include whether the states accept full responsibility for past colonial actions or recognise the transnational character of the Sámi, their history and culture. The majority population’s lack of engagement is another common concern (Kortekangas et al., 2025; Kuokkanen, 2020; Scheinin, 2024). With two of the three Nordic reconciliation processes still ongoing, it remains to be seen whether these efforts constituted ‘wasted time’ for the Sámi. In any event, attention should clearly be paid to the (ab)uses of hope in reconciliation processes.
Conclusions
The conceptual lens of ‘dark’ hope offers several viewpoints on contemporary Indigenous-state relations. As our discussion on truth and reconciliation processes has detailed, examining the less heartening perspective on hope reveals a need to look critically at progress, the control of time and the building of futures. These three concerns are crucial to investigating the question of contemporary colonialism.
Very little has changed in how states organise their relations with Indigenous peoples, despite the strong emphasis on recognition and reconciliation in contemporary politics. Referring more broadly to the Western ethos of political and legal progress, Katherine Lu (2017) observes that ‘popular and political discourse about the project of reconciliation obscures’ (p. 200) the colonial present. For example, land claim and truth and reconciliation processes are in many cases very long. In the end, there are no guarantees that the processes of legal or political recognition will actually reach any conclusion, nor certainty as to what the nature of an outcome will be. Be they related to land or reconciliation, the hopes of Indigenous peoples have often been disappointed. States utilise various tactics of distraction, placation and distancing to avoid addressing the claims put forward by Indigenous peoples and other groups states seek to reconcile with (e.g. Alfred, 2005; Arvidsson, 2020; Corntassel, 2023; George, 2020). The concerns raised over the truth and reconciliation processes between the Nordic states and the Sámi reflect these misgivings (e.g. Kuokkanen, 2020). Indeed, it is in the interests of states to maintain visions of a better future without committing to anything, yet. To this end, hope, future driven as it is, provides the perfect tool.
As we see it, through reconciliation processes, as well as all the hopes embedded therein, states uphold their prerogative to control time when it comes to their relations with Indigenous peoples. States guard and exercise their power over time unflinchingly, because time has had, and continues to have, such a pertinent role for the maintenance of hierarchical structures. It is no coincidence that truth and reconciliation processes typically only address a limited time period in history, one that is agreeable and at the same time manageable for the state. For example, drawing boundaries between past and present wrongdoings is a convenient strategy for the state but it might not fulfil the expectations that Indigenous peoples have placed in the process. It is also noteworthy that the truth and reconciliation processes in Finland, Sweden and Norway are among several other ongoing processes where the relations between the states and the Sámi are being (re)negotiated. The ongoing national debates on land and resource questions are cases in point. Even though the truth and reconciliation processes have been initiated by the Sámi, the states retain control over the processes and decide the timeline in which potential improvements will be implemented. It seems that reconciliation processes provide states yet another opportunity to govern time for their own purposes.
The constant not-yet-ness, upheld by states, enables them to dodge Indigenous claims, agendas and the challenges Indigenous peoples pose to them. Truth and reconciliation processes also run the risk of working to this end. This is not only a challenge for the present but, to a great extent, one for the future. As Tuck and Yang (2012) highlight, the problem with reconciliation processes is that they are ‘about rescuing settler normalcy, about rescuing a settler future’ (p. 35) – a future where states can consider matters settled and resolved (see also Park, 2020: 268). Indigenous scholars have, however, suggested ways in which to de-centre state-induced hopes. Strategies such as refusal, resurgence and nihilism can enable futures that stem from Indigenous peoples’ own needs and hopes (Corntassel, 2023; Simpson, 2017a; Watego, 2021). Depending on how the Nordic truth and reconciliation processes between the Sámi and the states play out, perhaps these counter-strategies to the states’ politics of hope will start to burgeon.
In order to dissect the ways in which colonial structures survive to this day, this article has argued for the need to pay attention to hope, perhaps the principal – and most surreptitious – element contributing to this ‘success’. In a world where ignoring the rights of Indigenous peoples or their struggles is no longer a viable option, hope is a convenient tool for states to care. Hope – typically seen as spurring struggles for self-determination and freedom – is an avenue enabling states to make Indigenous peoples’ claims that might warrant immediate attention vanish from agendas. By giving processes a veneer of hope – by stalling and, in the end, not delivering on their promises – states, in effect, continue their deep-rooted logic of dispossession.
Footnotes
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