Report from Occupied Territory: Sápmi and Colonial Racial Capitalism

In northern Europe, the indigenous Sámi people have been fighting against settler colonial dispossession, extractivism, and forced assimilation for more than five centuries. The Nordic states may have acquired a global reputation for their welfare systems, progressive environmentalism, and respect for human rights, but their wealth and prosperity would not have been possible without the “open veins” and extractive frontiers of Sápmi. Today the expropriation of Sámi lands and resources not only continues unabated but is also increasingly regarded as central to the development of “green” technologies, investments, and raw materials. From fossil-free mining to biofuels and wind power, new extractive frontiers are again created in what was once referred to as “Sweden's California,” “Norrland's India,” and “the land of the future” (Framtidslandet). In this “report from occupied territory” (borrowing from James Baldwin), Ida Danewid speaks with the Sámi artists and organizers Sofia Jannok, Anders Sunna, and Tor Tourda about the forgotten history of colonial racial capitalism in the Nordics, the ongoing Sámi struggle against (green) extractivism, and the meaning of freedom beyond the logic of property ownership.