One More Case History: The Saami of Lapland
The cultural setting where I am personally most comfortable happens to be largely tranquil, at least when the surface is viewed by outsiders or even from the inside. That setting would be among the Saami reindeer-breeders of Norwegian Lapland, where I’ve enjoyed many years of research and just plain visiting since 1972.
Over the thirty-plus years, I’ve tallied more than seven in combined durations of fieldwork. For the most part, when there, I live among the reindeer-managing minority, but I also focus on sedentary Saami in other occupations, who are the plurality, and on Norwegians—who are often a local minority in this arctic region of Norway, as are the Saami reindeer-breeders themselves. [See Anderson (1978) for a comprehensive ethnography, based largely on Norwegian Lapland; and Anderson (1991) and Paine (1984) about Saami-Norwegian relations.]The Saami do not exhibit any truly spectacularly violent habits. Indeed, were this arctic setting a strident one, with noticeable violence against persons and property, I may not have persevered in my research. This is an occasion, though, for me to foreground and reflect on some genres of violence and nonviolence in Saami culture, as documented historically and as unfolding ethnographically. In this case history, it’s possible to tap into some history and unpack various institutions affording us insight into the interplay of child-rearing, ethnicity, identity, environment, bureaucracy, and concerned culturebearers.