Indigenous Sámi Handicrafts and Cultural Appropriation in the Souvenir Market: A Settler Colonial Perspective

The cultural appropriation of Indigenous handicrafts in the souvenir market is common around the world. This article focuses on investigating how it relates to ongoing settler colonialism in Finland and, in so doing, contributes to the understanding of current colonial relations and practices in the Nordic countries which have traditionally not been regarded settler colonial. With a combination of settler colonial theory and practice theory, I address the making, appropriation, selling and buying of Sámi handicrafts as established social practices, asking what their constitutive elements are and how they relate to the settler colonial logic of the Finnish state to eliminate the Sámi. My research material consists of interviews with Sámi and non-Sámi handicraft makers and sellers, tourism entrepreneurs and other relevant stakeholders, as well as observations from the field. The analysis shows how the state enables cultural appropriation with its policies and inaction and, together with the appropriators and tourists, is gradually making the Sámi disappear as a distinct people. I also suggest various reparative measures that could transform the souvenir business to be more just to the Sámi. Finally, if public opinion in Finland were to continue to shift more negatively towards cultural appropriation and the trend towards responsible consumption were to strengthen, the appropriators might switch to more responsible business practices, even if the state continued to be settler colonial.