The representation of the Sámi people in Swedish cinema

Presentation of a research project as part of the "Jeudis de la Maison Suger", a residents' research seminar.

Ulf Mörkenstam is Professor at the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University and at the Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm. His main research interests are within democratic and political theory with a specific focus on the rights of indigenous peoples. He has published frequently on Sámi politics in Sweden and the Nordic countries, and recent publications have appeared in Citizenship Studies, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Electoral Studies and the International Journal of Human Rights.

Presentation of the project

"The Sápmi audiovisual collection [Sápmi på film och TV] is one of the largest multimedia databases organized with content concerning indigenous peoples, and includes around 450 films and 8,600 television programs related to the Sámi people of Sweden. Using illustrations of films since 1906, this seminar describes the work involved in building this database, focusing on ethical considerations and the addition of new metadata. What happens when metadata from a Sámi perspective is added and ethical guidelines have to be integrated into the daily work of the National Library of Sweden (the institution that preserves the “national memory”)? And how can this collection be used to remedy history so that the Sámi can tell their own stories, produce their own material and give new meaning to the audiovisual images that are preserved?"

Speaker

• Ulf Mörkenstam is Professor at the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University and at the Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm.