The Case for a Sámi “Trail of Tears”: Dangerous Dreams in the Era of Green Colonialism

This paper presents a visual metaphor or figure as a tool for Indigenous mobilisation: an imaginary S & aacute;mi "Trail of Tears." This imaginary trail recalls the largely untold history of the forced evictions of S & aacute;mi families in Sweden during the first half of the twentieth century. We engage Agamben's political philosophy to examine and interpret the colonial present in Swedish S & aacute;pmi and argue that such an imaginary trail also invokes a figure for contemporary social mobilisation in S & aacute;pmi against the green (re)colonisation that increasingly threatens to turn the entire region into a green sacrificial zone. The trail has the potential to serve as a "dangerous dream," challenging colonial state power as well as global resource extraction, much like Indigenous artivism and the struggle for visual sovereignty.