This evening’s discussion is based on the two highly topical books Herrarna satte oss hit: om tvångsförflyttningarna i Sverige (roughly translates as “The men brought us here: forced migration in Sweden”) by Elin Anna Labba and Vastatuuleen (roughly translates as “In the headwind”), co-authored by Kukka Ranta and Jaana Kanninen.
Authors Anna Elin Labba and Kukka Ranta will be interviewed and will discuss the traumatic history of the Sámi. The discussion will be led by social analyst Dr Lia Markelin, who has previously researched the politics of indigenous peoples in Finland and the state of Sámi media in the Nordic Region.
The discussion will be in English.
Follow the stream live on Facebook: www.facebook.com/nordiskkulturkontakt/live
Elin Anna Labba is a journalist and writer. She made her debut with Herrarna satte oss hit in January. The book depicts the wave of forced migration of the Sámi in Sweden in the 1920s and 1930s. She collected testimonies from older Sámi over the course of several years. Elin Anna also works at Tjállegoahte – Författarcentrum Sápmi, the Sámi author centre in Jokkmokk, which is tasked with strengthening and raising awareness of Sámi literature. She herself comes from a family who lived on forbidden land and, for her, this text is a way to tell the story of her own family.
Kukka Ranta is a writer and journalist and a doctoral student at the University of Lapland. In October 2019, together with journalist and author Jaana Kanninen, she published the book Vastatuuleen about the forced Fennofication of the Sámi population in Finland. In working on the book, the authors emphasised – and always based on the Sámi’s own needs – listening to and working with the Sámi and raising awareness among those previously unaware of the indigenous population’s experiences.
Dr Lia Markelin is a social analyst at the think tank Magma. From 2009 to 2018, she was employed part time as an assistant professor at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino, Norway. Markelin has researched areas such as the state of the Sámi media in the Nordic Region in relation to the countries’ policies for media and indigenous peoples and the policy for indigenous peoples in Finland. She is from southern Finland and has no Sámi roots.
