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Den svenska forskningen har felaktigt hävdat att det har funnits en överdödlighet i självmord bland svenska samer. Andra frågor än detta tar jag inte upp, skriver forskaren Jonny Hjelm i en slutreplik.

Min analys av innehållet i Sametingets Forskningspolitisk strategi (SFS) samt Åsa Virdi Kroiks (2021) och Ragnhild Nilssons (2021) doktorsavhandlingar, gjord med utgångspunkt i Mats Lindbergs VDP-triad – publicerad i Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift nummer 2, 2024 – visar på grundläggande idémässiga likheter när det kommer till ”värden” (V), ”beskrivningar” (D) och ”handlingsrekommendationer” (P). Jag menar att innehållet i SFS och doktorsavhandlingarna – och annan refererad litteratur – illustrerar genomslaget för ideologin urfolkism. Det yttrar sig bland annat i en strävan hos forskare att producera kunskap som befäster bilden av att dagens samer härstammar från den folkgrupp som funnits i Sápmi i minst 500 år och att detta urfolk har – som det skrivs i 2007 års urfolksdeklaration – ”behållit en del eller alla sina egna sociala, ekonomiska, kulturella och politiska institutioner”.

This article describes and analyses Swedish research on suicide among Sami over the past 25 years. It focuses on how two studies published in 2004 and 2005, which showed that the Sami had no excess mortality in suicide, were subsequently reinterpreted during the 2010s, whereby they came to support researcher-driven knowledge production that showed excess mortality by suicide among the Sami linked to mental illness, colonial oppression and historical trauma. In both research and social debate there was even talk of a "suicide wave" among the Sami, and research projects that referred to "alarming" scientific reports concerning suicide among the Sami were initiated. However, in the early 2020s, new empirically thorough studies showed that the concern was unjustified with respect to mental illness (concerning Sami in general) and reindeer-herding Sami, the subcategory identified as particularly affected by suicide. What had long been perceived as an accepted truth, supported by research, was thus no longer valid. This article argues that the 2010s' researcher-driven knowledge production about widespread mental illness and high suicide rates among the Sami was partly an expression of the impact of the international ideology of indigenism. One of its ideological cornerstones is victimhood and vulnerability, but also the indigenous collective mobilisation that can emerge from this position. Here influential researchers inserted their results and interpretations into indigenism and the social force it represents. In addition to the ideological influence, there was, at the scientific system level, excessive written knowledge production paired with poorly functioning peer reviews.

Det har bland forskare målats upp en bild av att svenska samer i högre grad än andra svenskar mår psykiskt dåligt och att det har funnits en överdödlighet i självmord. Men detta stämmer inte, skriver Jonny Hjelm.

Many intellectuals participated in the nation-state consolidation processes of the19th and 20th centuries when they identified and shaped popular character traits. Important themes were the ethnic group’s common history, culture and territory. The article shows that we are now witnessing a similar academically anchored knowledge production concerning the Sami indigenous people, where important parts of Swedish humanities research on the Sami participate. The article is based on an ideology analysis of two doctoral dissertations and a research strategic document adopted by the Sámi Parliament. The demonstrated ideology production is related to indigenism, a worldwide ideology with roots in decolonization and UN human rights and supported by postcolonial theorizing and indigenous methodologies. The points of departure are partly extra-scientific as I am skeptical of anyethnically defined folk thought, as in the old conservatism, and partly intra-scientific as I believe that researchers should be analytically distanced from the political movement and the social category being studied.

Recension av Susan Neiman, Left is not woke (Polity Press, Cambridge 2023).