Our histories in the photographs of the others: Sámi approaches to visual materials in archives

Abstract

Returning old photographs to Sámi communities has been a part of modern repatriation policies, trying to recollect the Sámi heritage from museums, archives and collections outside the modern Sámi area. It is not only important to return items, such as photographs, but also to reconstruct the knowledge around them: to re-identify the old encounters and stories. The article suggests that the earlier interpretations have emphasised the inter-ethnic relations between the Sámi and the majority societies. When returned to local levels of Sámi communities, however, to be interpreted through the lenses of the Sámi subjects, the photographs tell multiple visualized stories about intra-ethnic “our histories”, the recent past of families, kinships and small Sámi communities. The article is based on my experiences and the projects that have been carried out in Finland in the past 15 years, repatriating photographs to Sámi societies.

Keywords

• Sámi
• archival photographs
• Sámi heritage
• intra-ethnic history
• Sámi communities
• visual memories