Smi Media and Indigenous Agency in the Arctic North, Paperback

Digital media-GIFs, films, TED Talks, tweets, and more-have become integral to daily life and, unsurprisingly, to Indigenous people's strategies for addressing the historical and ongoing effects of colonization. In S mi Media and Indigenous Agency in the Arctic North, Thomas DuBois and Copp lie Cocq examine how S mi people of Norway, Finland, and Sweden use media to advance a social, cultural, and political agenda anchored in notions of cultural continuity and self-determination. Beginning in the 1970s, S mi have used S mi-language media--including commercially produced musical recordings, feature and documentary films, books of literature and poetry, and magazines--to communicate a sense of identity both within the S mi community and within broader Nordic and international arenas.

In more contemporary contexts--from YouTube music videos that combine rock and joik (a traditional S mi musical genre) to Twitter hashtags that publicize protests against mining projects in S mi lands--S mi activists, artists, and cultural workers have used the media to undo layers of ignorance surrounding S mi livelihoods and rights to self-determination. Downloadable songs, music festivals, films, videos, social media posts, images, and tweets are just some of the diverse media through which S mi activists transform how Nordic majority populations view and understand S mi minority communities and, more globally, how modern states regard and treat Indigenous populations.

Thomas A. DuBois is the Halls-Bascom Professor of Scandinavian Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Among his previous works is his recent Sacred to the Touch: Nordic and Baltic Religious Wood Carving. Copp lie Cocq is professor of European ethnology at the University of Helsinki, Finland, specializing in S mi studies. Among her previous publications are Revoicing S mi Narratives: North S mi Storytelling at the Turn of the Twentieth Century and the coedited volume Perspectives in Indigenous Writing and Literacies.