Cultural mediation : a case study of Sami research

Abstract

My work of cultural analysis is a labyrinth for cultural understanding and mediation. At work are the disciplines and trends of analysis - cultural, historical and legal-, the minotaurs. ''Cultural Mediation. A Case Study of Sami Research'' is the nest of a magpie with bits and pieces gathered in a mixed style, interdisciplinary, translating the oral tradition of the academic lectures in the lanscape of the Sami and Norwegian geo-political and economic landscape. The argumentative talks between the students and the lecturers in the Programme, on the methodology used in the Indigenous Studies Programme at the University of Tromsoe, as shared by both well-established academic fields and newly emerged fields such as Indigenous Studies, allowed the room for developing this style and discussion on and of old and new texts and performative acts, artistic qualities imbeded, and differences underlined or merged. The personae, Ande Somby and Henry Minde, as discussed in the paper are only discursive instances and fabulae of their written and performed acts. I apologise for any discrepancy, wrong or missing reference, which might interfere with the conventions of the academic writing in the text - they were possibly left out due to the economy of a Master thesis (as opposed to a PhD thesis, for example) of time, money and experience, and especially of time. The thesis contains four parts: 1. Introduction - discussing the research problem, 2. Theory and Methodology - stating the definitions used for concepts employed in the thesis, such as ''discourse'', ''ethics'', ''autobiography'', ''political and juridical indigenous discourse'', ''symbolic action'', 3. Ande Somby: ''Some Hybrids of the Legal Situation on the Sami People in Norway'' - discussion of Ande's project as artistic manifestation, performativity, cultural mediation, 4. Henry Minde: ''Assimilation of the Sami-Implementation and Consequances'' - history writing and the Sami political changes, staging as discursive mode, Norwegianisation strategies, state institutions, Sami community, assimilation stages, ''voice'' as discursive strategy.