Árran Archive: The Third Alternative (a Coastal Sami study)

The Third Alternative
by Asle Høgmo

The following description from a district in North Troms is typical for cultural change which has taken place in many smaller Sami-Norwegian communities.

In 1891 a census was completed in Norway. Among the questions asked of the residents of the northernmost provinces was their ethnicity. In a larger fjord in northern Troms there were around 1,000 responses, of which 60% identified themselves as Sami, 300 as Kven and 400 as Norwegians. Three generations later, in 1970, the same question was asked in the same fjord. This time there were only 50 who identified themselves as Sami.

This statistic does not reflect an exodus of Sami, but a dramatic assimilation over time. It documents the phenomenon of the Sami part of the population setting aside its original culture and community and replacing it with a cultural expression which can be described as Norwegian.

The path of progress was to acquire qualifications in Norwegian society, a process which led to a shifting of identity. Such a shift often took place over three generations. It was not painless, and carried with it social and psychological burdens.

I will attempt to present what it means for a child to manage a "Norwegian" identity in relationship to their parents' and grandparents' generations and the environment in general. I put "Norwegian" in quotes because we are dealing with a generation of children who see themselves as Norwegian. Their parents' generation have not articulated to them their Saminess. Their grandparents' generation is bilingual, and Sami is the primary language among adults of that generation. The hypothesis of this analysis is that the third generation has been Norwegianized, but has not become Norwegian.
Saami drum symbol - boat

I have chosen to describe the third generation as Norwegian because during their childhood and youth they considered themselves Norwegian. But just as the second generation's Saminess was not without a price, neither was the third generation's Norwegianess. The second generation's cultural adaptation consisted of negotiating a deeply rooted Sami identity in dissimilar environments. The third generation, which is now adult, has undergone three phases in Sami identity. Their childhood was Norwegian, but managing their roots created angst since their repertoire took on a different meaning and value when crossing ethnic spheres. Later youth, which for many meant moving away, could be characterized as a latency period as far as ethnic identity. As adults, they could, under certain circumstances, draw upon their roots, and one member of this generation has described their ethnicity as follows:

We are Norwegian, but we are Sami;
we are Sami, but we are Norwegian.

But let me go back to the children and identity issues. What does Norwegianess mean here? The second generation came to move from the the more remote areas where the first generation lived (A-fjord), to the municipal center (B-fjord), a small town. B-fjord had after the war attracted new residents from further south. This influx, plus a rather dramatic rebuilding after the war, set the stage for a powerful modernization process where intense stigmatization of Saminess was a prominent element.

For children of the second generation—those born during and after WWII—the social environment was as follows. They took for granted that they were Norwegian. Anything else was in a way unthinkable. They played with children, many of whom shared the same ethnic background. In this child's world it was paradoxically enough unthinkable to have a Sami identity. The explanation of this was that those children who knew each other's background also shared the same background. They were children of parents who had moved to town, but had grandparents who were still in outlying areas.

Situations where children were together with others of the same background were less threatening because ethnicity never became problematic. That there was no need for differentiation, and at the same time a shared threat of being labeled Sami created a solidarity of silence among them. Their identity was simply "kids from B-fjord." Individuals who lived outside the municipal center could be stamped with the insutt fjordafinn (fjord Sami) which would elicit strong reactions. In the children's world of B-fjord, fjordafinn was not associated with Sami or they probably wouldn't have used it. On the other hand the recipient's powerful reaction can be interpreted as a decoding to mean "coastal Sami" ethnicity. In other words, in the B-fjord children's world, while many of them had Sami background, there was nothing in their individual symbol production that revealed that they were Sami. Their identity, as coded into their language world, was Norwegian. Beyond the taunting level, any thoughts of being Sami were not formulated.

What was their relation to their parents' generation? The parents' Saminess was seldom if ever communicated to their children, nor acknowledged to their peers. The furthest they would go in a conflict situation with a peer would be to remark "They shouldn't talk so big, because I know where they come from." But it would stop there.

In this parent-child relationship, elements of ethnicity were wordless categories. If you didn't have a word for them, you couldn't process them consciously. The words that were used were taunts to characterize others. By making the Saminess of others problematic, through insults or swearing, it distracted attention from one's own.

The parent-grandparent and child-grandparent relationships, on the other hand, creates inconsistencies in the child's self-image, since these relationships involved encountering Sami cultural elements. The grandparents' generation hardly, if ever, expressed to the younger generations that they were Sami, but they didn't try to hide their Sami repertoir either. Sami was their everyday language, and they used it both in A-fjord and B-fjord. What remained of Sami clothing was used by some of the neighbors—summer moccasins and winter fur boots, although moccasins were more acceptable and the boots were seen as for around the house. Some of them had not set aside their everyday gákti, but they were also for home use.

This is the world of relationships the generation of Norwegian children grew up with and the pattern of ethnic expression for the three generations of this typical family. Circumstances had given the children a Norwegian identity, but managing it was not without cost. While they saw themselves as Norwegian, they still had to relate to all the elements in their surroundings that told them they were Sami. These elements needed to be "re-coded" in their inner world, so that the children could maintain an adequate relationship with them. Learning to manage these elements around them meant an automatic receding process to avoid becoming conscious of their original meaning. A typical example of this would be:

Grandmother is Sami
codes to
Grandmother (because she speaks it) speaks Sami

In this way, Sami elements are transformed in the child's world of symbols so their ethnic content is masked, and the Sami elements in the child's self-image are also camouflaged. This camouflage itself becomes an invisible stigma which the child neither can, nor dares to, deal with on the symbolic level.

The family's Sami repertoire contributed to a general anxiety among the children. Sides of themselves which they neither could put words onto, nor dared to name, were a general threat to the child's self-image and self-esteem. Still, in some situations it was relatively safe to experience a family member's expression of Saminess, while in other situations it was threatening. Elements which the children needed to relate to in either of those situations could include:

• Sami artifacts
• Sami clothes
• relationship to grandparents or other relatives
• grandmother speaking Sami
• grandmother speaking Norwegian with a Sami accent
• family contact with nomadic Sami

In contexts where Saminess is highly stigmatized, we often encounter a systematic denial of a person's Saminess. This is most likely the explanation for the strong hatred of Sami in towns and villages along the Finnmark coast. By expressing a strong hatred of Sami, one disguises simultaneously one's own non-Norwegianess.

In a multicultural context which incorporates Saminess, and where individuals are not called upon to demonstrate ethnicity on a daily basis, a person who wants to be taken seriously, both by themselves and others, must be true to themselves. This person has ties to both ethnic heritages. They can attempt a third positive alternative, a both/and category. But circumstances will probably force them to choose sides, between being Sami or a traitor. That means that in this context as well, there is only one choice.

Two primary characteristics of modern urban organization of people's daily lives are diversity and anonymity. It offers the urban individual the possibility of selecting or developing a network or affiliations where the possibility of manipulating impressions is great. In this way it is easy to create a daily life and a career where official signaling of ethnicity seldom if ever is required. Furthermore, an important element in this new social identity will be career. The core identity management strategy in this context will center on success in relationship to work in an official arena. The either/or problem of ethnicity need not come up anywhere except within the family.

Per - a case study
It is after WWII. Per is 6-7 years old. He belongs to the Norwegianized generation, and does not consider himself Sami. His nuclear family, which also considers itself Norwegian, lives in B-fjord, a town of about 700 people. He often visits his grandparents in A-fjord who are bilingual. They regularly speak Sami with their neighbors, especially when they don't want Per to understand. Per doesn't think that much about it—that's just the way it is. His grandmother sews Sami moccasins and boots which he uses when he is in A-fjord, as do the other children. The moccasins are never used in B-fjord, where he could easily be called Finn-unge (Sami-kid), which he is not.

Even though he gets a little homesick, he feels relatively safe in A-fjord—there is nothing here to be ashamed of. In B-fjord it is the opposite. He can take his world from B-fjord with him to A-fjord but not the other way around. Even to be identified with A-fjord carries with it an undefinable shame. One problematic situation may be playing with his friends when the ferry comes from A-fjord. He goes to the dock and sees that his grandmother is on board. She is speaking Sami with her neighbors, but notices Per and greets him. The other neighbors on the boat from B-fjord also know Per well and speak with him, both in Norwegian and in Sami. He enjoys the attention but is ashamed of it here in B-fjord. Grandmother notices his hesitation, and jokes with him that maybe he thinks she is not fine enough. This comment makes Per even more ashamed since it stamps him as a traitor and makes him feel guilty about his grandmother and other relatives from A-fjord. This feeling of guilt makes him feel less safe in A-fjord, where until now he has felt the safest. This double shame becomes even stronger when his cousin from A-fjord comes to town.

If he lives up to his relative's expectations in A-fjord he will be labeled Sami. If he only identifies with his playmates in B-fjord he will feel like a traitor. As an adult, in retrospect, Per reports that the traitor label makes him feel most ashamed. This has led to a self-image as a morally inferior individual, and this is the real stigma which follows him into his adulthood. To have Sami roots as an adult is not a problem, but to have denied one's own past does not go away. True enough it was a way to maintain a relationship with a world forced upon him before he was conscious of it. Per relates that when he occasionally as an adult meets his people from A-fjord, he can read in their expression more or less the following: You've come up and out in the world, but what good is that when you are a traitor. This is the price Per pays for his Norwegianized identity. To be labeled as a person with roots which the environment labels as less desireable he can live with. It can even be an advantage as an adult. But to be labeled as a person of lesser character is more difficult. Per"s consolation is that this dilemma was forced on him and he didn't really have a choice. Or did he?

"Det tredje alternativ"
Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning 1986
bd. 27, 295-416 (excerpts)