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Den inverkan som dämningar och kraftuttag haft för det samiska samhället löper som en blå tråd genom 1900-talet och in i det nya millenniet. Men i dagens omställningspolitik talas det om vattenkraftutbyggnaden i historiska termer som om de knappt längre har någon påverkan. Dessutom kan nya och effektivare sätt att använda vattenkraften komma i fråga. Dammar och kraftverk finns ju redan där till skillnad från områden som ännu är orörda. På grund av vattenkraftens miljöpåverkan och det faktum att merparten av anläggningarna i Sverige tillkom under en äldre lagstiftning, beslutades det 2018 att verksamheterna ska omprövas till moderna miljötillstånd anpassade till dagens lagar. När den omfattande processen inleds kan de lokalsamhällen som upplevde dämningar och kraftverksbyggen få en möjlighet att yttra sig om vad vattenkraften haft för konsekvenser. Kapitlet avser att ge en bakgrund kring den markpolitik från 1800-talets mitt som fått betydelse för hur svenska staten och andra offentliga och privata aktörer agerat när det gäller vattenkraftutbyggnad. Det beskriver översiktligt den svenska vattenkraftutbyggnadens politiska och juridiska ramverk och gör nedslag i de samiska områdena för att ge exempel på konsekvenserna av vattenkraftutbyggnaden.

To understand how different parties argued and acted in extraction projects in the Sámi homeland today known as Sápmi, this study examines the earliest phases of a hydropower permit case at Abelvattnet in Sweden during the 1960s. The investigation draws on the archive of the Water Court to answer questions regarding how discussions about the project’s consequences for the Sámi and reindeer husbandry were brought forward and how arguments were met. How did the different parties argue in the matter of the permit and the consequences of the intervention, as well as possible compensations to the Sámi and reindeer husbandry? During the 1950s, hydropower expansion increased dramatically in northern Sweden. Sámi organizations as well as other NGOs mobilized to voice their opinions against the industrialization. While reindeer husbandry as well as other industries in society were on the brink of rationalization according to corporate economic principles, the policy towards the Sámi and reindeer herding was strongly influenced by paternalistic attitudes from the end of the nineteenth century. The legislation involved both panoptic power over reindeer herders who were placed under state supervision, and anoptic power for authorities to degrade, limit and make invisible the land use for reindeer herding. Legislation also defined the group of Sámi who would have access to the Sámi land rights, something that created a division within the Sámi people. This study illuminates the consequences of ignorance about what the external pressure in the form of hydropower expansion can pose, as well as the authorities’ strategies to meet a supposedly ever-increasing need for energy.

Vi uppmanar regeringen att kraftfullt stärka en grön omställning grundad i demokratiskt deltagande, tillit och långsiktighet. I stället för att se kritik och gnissel som hinder måste regeringen stärka processer för att lyfta fram perifera områdens perspektiv och redan i planeringsstadiet överbrygga orättvisor mellan olika platser och samhällsgrupper regionalt, nationellt och internationellt, skriver ett stort antal forskare.

Ever since the 1630s and the discovery of silver ore deposits in the alpine areas of Sápmi, Sweden has nurtured settler colonial ideas in relation to Sápmi and the Sami. The first legal settler colonial tool was the Lappmark Proclamation of 1673. However, the vision of “the land of the future” with mining and agriculture proved to be somewhat of a mirage. A second wave of settler colonial ideas came with the industrial breakthrough. As we are now entering the third era of settler colonial ideas, sacrificing Sami lands, rights, and self-determination seems to be a continued strategy of the Swedish state. Once again, entrepreneurs, companies and politicians project the idea of a “land of the future” onto the north and Sápmi. In this article, I describe this phenomenon, which has been—and still is—based on settler colonial ideas, anopticism and sidelining of the Sami and their historical as well as current land rights.

Review of: Arthur Mason (ed.), Arctic Abstractive Industry. Assembling the Valuable and Vulnerable North (Studies in the Circumpolar North 5), New York: Berghahn 2022, ISBN 9781800734685, xiv + 210 pp.

I forskningsprojektet Skada skedd: Urfolkssamhällens erfarenheter av och rekommendationer för energiproduktion har vi undersökt hur energi- och annan utvinningsindustris verksamhet historiskt påverkat och fortsätter att påverka urfolk, samt vilka slags förändringar urfolk vill se i interaktioner med dessa industrier.

Samiska forskningsdeltagare rekommenderar att företag som på allvar utövar socialt ansvar genom att främja jämlik dialog och ömsesidig förståelse ska premieras. Bolagen behöver kommunicera sitt sociala ansvar, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) till samebyar eller samiska organisationer. De behöver också efterleva sin CSR-kommunikation så att det stämmer överens med deras faktiska handlingar i interaktioner med samiska organisationer, föreningar eller samebyar. Samer vill se ökad kunskap om samiskt samhälle, historia, kultur och samiska perspektiv hos bolag. Samer skulle också vilja se en samordnande organisation för bolags CSR i Sverige som även skulle kunna implementera och hantera CSR-certifiering.

I en internationell jämförelse undersökte vi erfarenheterna av utvinningsindustriers CSR hos  samer i Sverige och Adnyamathanha och Arabunna-folken i södra Australien. Trots stora skillnader mellan Sverige och södra Australien vad gäller rättigheter, näringar, politiska situationer och klimat, visar studien ändå stora likheter i hur utvinningsindustriers sociala ansvar kommuniceras och följs, och de aboriginska forskningsdeltagarna vittnar om hur fina ord inte efterlevs i praktiken.

In the research project Damage Done: Indigenous communities’ experiences of and recommendations for energy production, we have studied how the activities of the energy industry and other extractive industries have affected and continue to affect Indigenous peoples, and what changes Indigenous people themselves would like to see in interactions with these industries. 

Sámi research participants recommend that companies that encourage dialogue on equal terms and reciprocal understanding, thus showing strong social responsibility practices, should be rewarded. Companies need to communicate their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to Sámi communities or Sámi organisations and comply with this in their interactions with Sámi representatives. Sámi people would like corporations to demonstrate greater knowledge of Sámi history, society, culture and worldviews and they would like to see an organisation tasked with coordinating CSR in Sweden, including implementing and administering a system for CSR certification. 

In an international comparison, we examined the experiences of CSR in extractive industries, held by representatives of the Adnyamathanha and Arabunna peoples of South Australia. Despite significant differences between Sweden and South Australia in terms of rights, livelihoods, the political situations and climates, the study shows great similarities in how extractive industries communicate about and comply with CSR.

Den här studien undersöker hur vattenkraft skildrats på film och i tv-program som tillkommit under åren 1957 och 1995. På vilket sätt har vattenkraftutbyggnaden relaterats till samer i första hans, men även lokalsamhällena generellt. Undersökningen bygger på 20 filmer och televisionsprogram från Kungliga bibliotekets Svensk mediadatabas (SMDB) som också ingår i kollektionen "Sápmi på film och TV". Materialet har olika avsändare (Statens Vattenfallsverk/Vattenfall AB, fristående producenter, public service) och analyseras utifrån vad de olika bidragen fokuserar på i relation till tillkomstår och avsändare. Innehållsanalysen utförs mot bakgrund av tidigare forskning, och analyserar övergripande teman från positivt och negativt inriktade narrativ om vattenkraftutbyggnad. Public service står bakom en större del av materialet och där ses också ett bredare spektrum av narrativ där samiska röster får ge sina synpunkter medan Vattenfall har ett snävare budskap som i lägre grad relateras till det samiska samhället. Vattenkraftens fördelar lyfts fram medan inverkningar och skador och bolagets hantering av det formuleras om till något positivt. Bland materialet har, inte oväntat, utbyggnaderna i Stora Luleälvs övre del en särställning. Materialet från fristående producenter visar också en bredd av utbyggnadsmotstånd, nostalgiska återblickar i industrivänlig ton samt opinionsbildande om miljö och arbetsliv kring reglerade vatten.

In the wake of the enthusiasm for green energy, previously contested energy and mining projects can be framed as part of a green transition. When state authorities decide to forego the standard procedural protections and the processes and forums for deliberation and local influence, it contributes to constructing green sacrifice zones. This paper compares two Swedish energy policy processes. The first is occurred during World War II and the hydropower expansion of the 1940s and 1950s. The second takes place today when wind power is expanding to increase renewable energy production. In Sweden, policymaking seems to be back to square one in the green transition, leaving out both important knowledge of the past and contemporary voices of the ongoing and probable consequences. In certain issues, such as how the recognition of the Indigenous status of the Sámi actually affects the legislative process and how to address the Indigenous rights of the Sámi, policymaking is particularly slow to adapt. The green transition industry is already affecting the Sámi, as the construction of the Nordic welfare society has done during the last century, and still does. It deepens an ongoing colonial wave that started in the 1300s. By showing how the Swedish legislative process, historically as well as currently, has neglected to involve Sámi representatives, this study points to the importance and obligation of Swedish policymaking to engage Sámi representatives in an early phase to avoid further sacrifice zones in Sápmi.

The settler colonial perspective has until recently gained modest attention from scholars analysing the relations between the Swedish state and the Indigenous Sámi people throughout history. This article explores the dynamics of settler colonialism in the Swedish state’s relation to the Sámi people through the expansion of hydropower. I argue that the hydropower invasion beginning in the 1910s reinforced Swedish settler colonialism, ultimately shown in the hydropower company town of Porjus. This industrial colonialism in Swedish hydropower politics and practice with following consequences continues the settler colonial policy from the passing of the ‘Lappmarks Placat’ in 1673 when agrarian settlers of various origins were encouraged to take up farmstead settlements and populate areas perceived as uninhabited. During the nineteenth century several policies and administrative practices made invisible and devastated Sámi self-determination and land rights. When Sámi land rights had been devalued and westernised, the time was ripe for a new colonial policy, a policy promoting industrial extraction of hydroelectricity from the rivers of Sápmi – the traditional country of the Sámi people, situated in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian Kola Peninsula.

For over one hundred years, hydropower expansion has taken place in Sápmi, the land ofthe Indigenous Sámi people in Northern Fenno-Scandia and the Kola Peninsula. In modern energy company narratives, certain parts of history remain unmentioned. Among these are the narratives belonging to Sámi people who were negatively impacted by hydropower expansion. Thus, the aim of this article is to analyse three state-owned energy companies’narratives about their hydropower expansion in Sápmi and compare them with challenging voices or counter-narratives. The sources used are the companies’ websites and the official documents and material found there, as well as other documentary sources, literature,and research spanning a time period of 1910 to 2021. The overall questions are: To what extent and in what ways are Sámi experiences regarding hydropower expansion part of the companies’ narratives. This study uses counter-narrative and narrative justice as conceptual framework and shows that the full impact that hydropower expansion has had on Sámi people’s situations is insufficiently communicated in the companies’ narratives. Instead,  the companies mainly construct their narratives as hydropower expansion in Sápmi being a phenomenon located in history without connection to ongoing consequences on Sámi lands and lives.