Browsing by Subject "http://www.yso.fi/onto/yso/p11537"
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(2022)This thesis examines the effects of the legal framework of the indigenous peoples defined in the study on different aspects of the lives of the Kola Sámi living in the Kola Peninsula. In Russia, both the Constitution and Federal laws guarantee the protection of indigenous peoples’ way of life through various rights. Despite this, several scholars and the media have increasingly written about the challenges related to the realization of the rights of indigenous peoples, especially during the last decade. In this thesis, the effects of Sámi rights are examined by using the theory of legal pluralism, which takes into account the colonial nature of laws and their outcome. The data of the study consists of f interviews, 21 news articles and one podcast. Due to the restricting political atmosphere in Russia in 2022 and the research pressure on the Sámi people, the data has been compiled using different, mutually supporting and reinforcing qualitative methods. The research topic is approached with content analysis, which emphasizes the three main themes identified from the background literature, in light of which the effects of Sámi rights are discussed. These three themes are bureaucracy, environment and economy. In addition to the three main themes, the analysis identifies three different fields of influence of Sámi rights: control of rights through self-governance and self-determination; obstacles related to the pursuit of traditional livelihoods; and contradictions in the existence of rights de jure. The results show that the realization of Sámi rights is secondary to the interests of the state and local actors. The colonialist attitude of the Russian Federation towards its Arctic regions manifests itself in the primacy of the capitalist benefit of the Kola Peninsula at the expense of the rights and traditions of the Kola Sámi. The results show that during V. V Putin’s current administration, the nature of the rights of the Kola Sámi has become repressive and further limiting. In order to fulfill Arctic interests, the Sámi are controlled and assimilated through their legal framework. Obstacles and difficulties in the exercise of rights as well as harassments against the Kola Sámi contribute to the alienation of the population from their environment and traditions. Thus, in this thesis, the effects of Sámi rights are seen as intentional, oppressive and suppressing the population instead of their protection.
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(2018)The ethnic diversity in Europe is increasing and targeted cultural rights for old and new minorities are today a hot topic of debate. Most studies of these debates have so far focused on public discourses. This thesis asks how ethnic and national identities gain function as arguments in these debates and takes the study of them to the grass-root level of a specific locality: Porsanger. Porsanger is a municipality in Northern Norway with three official cultures; Sámi, Kven and Norwegian. Lately, also new immigration has increased the local diversity. The specific objective of this thesis is to analyse 1) in what kind of discourses ethnic and national identities gain function as arguments, 2) what kind of versions of these identities they facilitate, and 3) what kind of norms and ideologies these arguments build on. The primary material of the study consists of thematic, qualitative interviews with 19 inhabitants from Porsanger, all with diverging backgrounds and ethnic affiliations. The analysis was done with Discourse Analysis and borrowed concepts from Argumentation Theory. The discursive contextualization was done with ethnographic material and 36 thematic interviews from Porsanger (from year 2015 and 2017), previous research, media material and governmental documents. The results show, that the utterances in which diverging constructs of ethnic and national identities gain argumentative function reflect two central ideologies. First off, the function of ethnic identities is especially prominent in utterances which build on the idea that cultural rights are a question of minority categorization and of being an “authentic” minority. Three legal categories with different ethnic criteria, which entitle to different levels of protection, form the basis for targeted minority rights today: indigenous peoples, national minorities and immigrant groups. Sámi are today recognized as indigenous peoples and Kven as a national minority. Three discourses are identified in the material. In discourses in which the status or the authenticity of a specific group is questioned, ethnic identities become a matter of debate. In the Discourse of sameness, groups are re-constructed as indistinguishable right claimants. In the Discourse of opportunism, existing rights are opposed by questioning the authenticity of specific group identities. The normative presuppositions in these discourses insinuate that those that are autochthonous and “authentic”; those traditional and genetically and culturally distinct, have the most right to cultural protection. Secondly, the utterances also reflect the public discourses in which cultural rights boil down to a question of national belonging: a question of who should receive protection by the state and whose culture belongs in the public sphere. Hence, also re-constructions of the nation gain function. Several pan-ethnic boundaries such as “western”, “indigenous”, “Muslim” and “refugee” are drawn in these negotiations of belonging. Those culturally most distant are constructed as having the least right to belong. In addition, and more surprisingly, also the region of Porsanger gains a clear function. I argue, that Porsanger takes form as a nation-like construct. In the Discourse of regional belonging, constructs of Porsanger and the Norwegian nation justify different standpoints on the inclusion of immigrant cultures. The Norwegian nation or Porsanger as multicultural functions as an argument for increased rights for immigrant groups, while Norway as mono-cultural, and Porsanger as part of it, functions for the opposite. Constructing everyone in Norway as ethnically “mixed”, functions both as an argument against exclusion of immigrants but also against targeted rights as such. Conversely, constructing the nation as built on several distinct peoples (Norwegian and Sámi or Kven) becomes an argument for targeted rights. This thesis shows that rights and identities are negotiated in plural and fragmented ways and in relation to other groups, the nation, and the regional community. The thesis shows that identity construction is a dialectic, context dependent, glocalised way of ordering the world.
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