New research suggests that the conflicts on Sáminess in Finland have been deliberately supported and produced

In her doctoral thesis Tiina Jääskeläinen explored how the Sámi people’s claims about the impacts of gold panning, mineral exploration and the Arctic Railway were recognised and contested in land use, natural resource and development governance in 2015-2025.

“I found that decision-making did not adequately recognise the Sámi’s claims about how the proposed projects would impact the communities. The permitting of mechanical gold panning did not adequately take into account Sámi knowledge on impacts to landscape and pastureland recovery”, says Jääskeläinen.

The Geological Survey of Finland and many mineral exploration companies have not recognised that the Sámi in the Finnish Sámi homeland have a policy that large mines are not welcome.

Jääskeläinen’s research also suggests that local and regional actors that have competing land interests with Sámi reindeer herding delayed negotiations on how to ensure the Sámi effective participation rights in the Sámi homeland by supporting local countermobilisation against the Sámi Parliament.

Earlier research has already shown that after the Sámi were recognised as an Indigenous people in Finland in 1995, some local residents in the Sámi homeland who had not previously identified as Sámi began claiming Indigeneity. Their identity projects, motivated largely by land interests, developed in the Sámi homeland and grew into what became known as the (New) Lapp movement.

“The (New) Lapp movement has actively worked to delegitimise the Sámi Parliament and has spread discriminatory discourses and hate speech against the Sámi. It has received significant support from municipalities, major political parties in Lapland, regional development actors, some economic advocacy organisations and a Ministry with aligned interests. After the mining industry expanded in Northern Finland, these new identity claims spread to Central Lapland and the Kuusamo area in the 2010s, driven by economic and political interests not determined by the Sámi”, Jääskeläinen states.

“The (New) Lapp movement succeeded in freezing negotiation on the renewal of the Sámi Act in 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2023 , because it received so much political support for it. The movement leaders, many of whom are today politicians, encourage locals to believe that reindeer herding cooperatives or municipalities could qualify as so called ‘Lapp villages’ from the 1700s. They also claim that Lapp villages owned the land then. Many join the movement in the hope of gaining broader land rights”, Jääskeläinen points out.

As a consequence, many in the local communities have a false understanding about what an Indigenous people means. They mistakenly interpret it as any ancestry to someone who has lived in the areas of historical Lapp village areas. Many also have unrealistic expectations towards their land rights. 

According to Jääskeläinen it seems that many municipalities and some political parties in Northern Finland have become more interested in the use of Sámi identity as means to advance municipal and regional political interests. The use of Sámi identity is problematic, unless consented by the Sámi through their self-government, the Sámi Parliament.

“Political support for this kind of organised countermobilisation and self-Indigenisation beyond the Sámi consent weakened Sámi-Finnish relations and prevented locals with competing land interests from negotiating solutions to land use contestations in the Sámi homeland”, Jääskeläinen claims.

The Act on the Sámi Parliament was renewed in June 2025. The Sámi participation rights in the Sámi homeland were strengthened. Also, the (New) Lapp movement does not anymore have access to the Sámi electoral register as it did before.

“I can see that after these changes, the Sámi Parliament and municipalities in the Sámi homeland are again willing to negotiate and collaborate”, says Jääskeläinen.

You can read the whole thesis here:

Strategic production of conflicts on indigeneity to reassemble the Sámi homeland : dynamics between land use intensification, indigenisation, and self-indigenisation

More information:

Tiina Jääskeläinen
tiina.jaaskelainen@hanken.fi
Phone +358 50 5922 133

Opponent: Professor Steffen Böhm, University of Exeter Business School
Custos: Professor Frank den Hond, Hanken School of Economics

Tiina Jääskeläinen will defend her thesis on 30 January at 13:30 in Hanken School of Economics, Arkadiankatu 22, Helsinki. You can also participate online: Tiina Jääskeläinen defence