A special issue presenting a thematically wide-ranging interim status of research on Sámi sport

Ansgar Molzberger
Institut für Sportgeschichte, Deutsche Sporthochschule, Köln

Ethnic relations in the sporting periphery: historical studies from the North Calotte” – this is the title given by the guest editors Isak Lidström from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (Department of Historical Studies of Technology, Science and Environment) – Lidström now works at the The Swedish School of Sport and Health Science (GIH) – and Helge Chr. Pedersen from The Arctic University of Norway (Campus Alta, Department of Teacher Education and Pedagogy) in their introduction to the 144-page special issue “Sámi sport” of the journal Sport, History & Society – Annual report of the Swedish Sport History Association, published in 2023.

By ‘ethnic relations in the sporting periphery’, Lidström and Pedersen mean that sport should be analyzed as a social platform from which cultural identities can be formed and reshaped. According to them, the special perspective of the publication is that it looks at historical contexts in the north, at places, people and events where the ancient origins of cultural diversity have left their mark on the shape of modern sport (p. 8). As an occasion for the publication of the special issue, they point out that sociological and historical sport research, focusing on sport as an identity-forming factor for the Sámi, has been conducted in Northern Europe for around 15 years.

The special issue is therefore intended as a kind of interim summary of the current state of research on the topic of Sámi sport. Moreover, by facilitating discussions on sport as a social phenomenon with special reference to minorities – sport can be a means of liberation and of achieving ethno-political goals, as well as shaping and consolidating stereotypes and prevailing political power structures, according to Lidström and Pedersen (pp. 9-10) – the special volume is intended to contribute to establishing Sámi sport as a separate field of research in the sociology and history of sport.

Nevertheless, the editors state as a limitation in the holistic consideration of the phenomenon of Sámi sport that, even though the Sámi as a people live in the transnational Sápmi region, the political borders in Northern Europe nevertheless characterise Sámi sport and thus also this special issue. This becomes clear when looking at the table of contents, which – somewhat contrary to the announcement in the introduction that the focus of the volume would be on historical contexts in the north as a whole – lists seven independently written specialist articles that reflect a Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish orRussian perspective on Sámi sport.

The national press coverage of a successful sports personality who belonged to an ethnic minority – the downhill skier Sarah Thomasson (1925-1996) was Sámi – is analyzed, supplemented by the specific research aspect of gender.

The contributions also feature different research perspectives (sociological and/or historical) and a variety of methods. The focus is on biographical and media research and the relationship between the state and the minority, as well as an examination of Sámi sporting activities.

In detail, the following topics are covered:

Helge Chr. Pedersen (Norway) analyses in his contribution “’Finsk sisu’ og ’norsk’ hoppmentalitet: Skiløping og skiftende kvensk minoritetsforståelse i fortellingene om ’finske’ Per Olsen og ’hopperen’ Bjørn Wirkola” [‘Finnish sisu’ and ‘Norwegian’ jumping mentality: Skiing and changing Kven minority understanding in the stories of ‘Finnish’ Per Olsen and ‘jumper’ Bjørn Wirkola] the contemporary national press coverage of the Norwegian athletes Per Olsen (1932-2013, cross-country skiing) and Bjørn Wirkola (b. 1943, ski jumping), who were active in the 1950s and 1960s respectively, with a view to their Kven identity and the associated affiliation to an ethnic minority in Norway.

In the following “Interne hierarkier i samisk idrett i Norge” [Internal hierarchies in Sami sports in Norway], Eivind Åsrum Skille (Norway) deals with the association structures of Sámi Sport in Norway, represented by the umbrella organization Sámi Valáštallan Lihttu, in the field of tension between self-assertion as an ethnic minority and assimilation. The theoretical basis for his study is Bourdieu’s perspectives on symbolic power as well as Weber’s concepts of dominance and discipline.

Bente Ovedie Skogvang & Prisca Bruno Massao (Norway) discuss in “Kulturelle og politiske betydninger av aktivitetstilbud for barn og unge på urfolksfestivalen Riddu Riđđu. En helhetlig tilnærming” [Cultural and political meanings of activity offers for children and young people at the indigenous festival Riddu Riđđu. A holistic approach] the children’s festival ‘Mánáidfestivála’, which is organized as part of the international festival Riddu Riđđu, which was established in 1991 in Gáivuotna/Kåfjord municipality in Troms, Norway. The study, which examines the period 2009-2019 and is based on fieldwork at the festival, sheds light on how the event emphasizes decolonization over Norwegianization.

Isak Lidström (Sweden) examines in “Bollspelen i Johannes Schefferus ’Lappland’. Fragment av nordiskt tidigmodernt idrottsliv med utblickar mot Island och de brittiska öarna” [The ball games in Johannes Schefferus’ ‘Lapland’. Fragment of Nordic early modern sporting life with views towards Iceland and the British Isles] a prominent historical source from the 17th century that has not yet been considered in Swedish sport history research. With the help of Schefferus’ The History of Lappland, he is able to show that – contrary to previous doctrine – ball games, which were practiced by two teams and in which the ball was driven with sticks towards goals and thus show similarities to the British games hurling, shinty, bandy and hockey as well as to knattleikr, which was popular in Icelandic Viking culture, were also played in early modern Sweden.

Another Swedish contribution can be found in “’Vår främste man är en liten kvinna’: Framställningen av utförsåkaren Sarah Thomasson i rikstäckande dagspress, 1949-1955” [‘Our main man is a little woman’: The portrayal of downhill skier Sarah Thomasson in the national daily press, 1949-1955] by Vera Boqvist. Similar to Pedersen’s contribution, the national press coverage of a successful sports personality who belonged to an ethnic minority – the downhill skier Sarah Thomasson (1925-1996) was Sámi – is analyzed, supplemented by the specific research aspect of gender.

Finally, there are two articles on Sámi sport in Finland and Russia in the special issue. Kati Lehtonen & Mikko Salasuo (Finland) thematize in “Putting the puzzle together. The state of Sami sports research in Finland”, the source situation and the resulting research possibilities for Sámi sport. In particular, they point to the possible positive interactions between research and sports policy. In addition, their study contributed to the large-scale, interdisciplinary research project “The northernmost dimension of youth. A study of the leisure time and hobbies of children and young people in the Northern Lapland region and the Sámi community”, the results of which were published in 2023.

Petia Mankova (Norway) deals with “Samiske nasjonale idretter i russisk Sápmi. Proletarisert, militarisert og pedagogisert” [Sami national sports in Russian Sápmi. Proletarianized, militarized and educated] on the development of Sámi sport in the Murmansk region. It concentrates on three time periods: The early period of Bolshevik power in the 1920s and 1930s, when traditional games were transformed into Soviet forms of physical activity. Then the 1970s and 1980s, when national sports were revitalized in Russian Sápmi, and finally the last decade (2013-2023). In doing so, Mankova shows that the political authorities in all three periods under investigation always encouraged nationally-influenced sport, as they hoped it would contribute to national consolidation – and at the same time as a kind of bulwark against a (propagated) external enemy.

The special issue also contains the non-refereed essay “Kautokeinos fotballeventyr og suksesstrener Mikkel Bongo: Fra laveste divisjon til nord-norsk toppdivisjon” [Kautokeino’s football adventure and successful coach Mikkel Bongo: From the lowest division to northern Norway’s top division] by Odd Mathis Hætta.

As the diversity of the articles presented, all of which are very interesting, shows, the issue not only represents a thematically wide-ranging interim status of research on ‘Sámi sport’, but it also provides a variety of impulses for further research possibilities – just think of further biographical and media research on the subject.

At the same time, however, the great diversity of content also represents a weakness: It is not always entirely clear whether the specific research findings presented in the contributions are representative of the topic of Sámi sport or rather (national) individual cases. A stronger link between the individual contributions and their categorization in a larger context could have helped here. The introduction, which is rather short at just over two pages, could have served this purpose by presenting the state of research and the source situation on Sami sport as a whole in more detail and at a central point in order to give the reader a better basis for reading and categorizing the articles in the research field.

To be fair, however, it must also be said that Lidström and Pedersen point out in their introduction that the special volume is intended to be a kind of starting signal for establishing the research field of Sámi sport, so they have achieved a pioneering deed – or, to put it in the words of Lehtonen and Salasuo: “Putting the puzzle together” as a task for the future.

We can therefore look forward to the next volume on the subject, hopefully to be published in a few years’ time, and the new research findings it will contain.

Copyright © Ansgar Molzberger 2024