The Art of Performing Sound in Sámi Tourism: Decolonising Sápmi by Sounding Care in Verdde Tourism

Abstract

Waitt and Duffy (2010) emphasised the loss of information in tourism research by arguing that a new understanding of knowledge, social power and interconnection between actors and tourism can be uncovered by focusing our attention on the ear and the world of sound. This thesis focuses on the importance of sound and soundscape in Sámi tourism. Inspired by abductive procedures (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2017) my work presented itself to become a Sámi phenomenological feminist material semiotic (van der Duim, Ren, & Jóhannesson, 2017; Ingold, 2002, Haraway, 1988; Law, 2004). I developed my project based on an interest in the embodied sensuous experience of the world and to investigate the role of the sound with a Sámi entrepreneur at Vuolit Mollešjohka Duottarstophu. Through my indigenous performance ethnography an emphasis was placed upon sound recordings. I also used conversation, and others storytelling and participated practises as methods. Bringing attention to the ear, sounds, the acoustic and the sonic in tourism surprisingly, the tacit knowledge of traditional skills presented itself. Caring for everything that belongs to and passes through the surroundings at Vuolit Mollešjohka demands enhanced sonic skills of listening. Sound shows the effect that materials have, how they relate and when they matter. By participating in the daily practices and paying attention to how Piera and his family practice jávredikšun (caretaking) to all the verddes (guest-friends) that passes through their meahcci (nurture land), they give a possibility to experience their ways of knowing, being and doing in the soundscape. Local and traditional skills are used to re-create symbolic relations and practises that have been repressed under colonialization. In the process of decolonialisation of Sápmi, the Verdde tourism concept developed at the Vuolit Mollešjohka makes for an interesting contribution to the encounters of knowing coming together in difference.