Discursive elaborations of ‘Saami’ ethnos: A multi-source model of ethnic and ethnopolitical structuration

Abstract

This essay provides ethnographic and historical insight into the discursive elaborations of the ‘Saami’ ethnos in order to argue that ethnic and ethnopolitical structuration must not be reduced to categorical ontology, least of all as a unitary mode of social classification. Building on fieldwork in Guovdageaidnu (Norway), and an analysis of government documents, this text presents a multi-source model of ethnic and ethnopolitical structuration. The model offers a frame for historical processes, and explicates the articulations and disarticulations in the relationships between socialization and the universalistic categorization of belonging found within ethnopolitical discourse.

Keywords

Ethnic categorization ethnicity ethnopolitical structuration Norway prototypes ‘Saamis’

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