An explanation of my position in the research

The nature of the qualitative research undertaken in the dissertation, which is concerned with ethno-graphical field work, the ethnographic study of literature, participant observation (interviews), in relation to the formulation of research questions with regard to approaching indigenous peoples culture, requires attention at this point. In order to make my position in the research clear, it is also important for reasons of comparison and representation, to explain some of the different contexts where acts of racism are evident and how these have been portrayed. This is both in a historical context as well as modern one, to give the reader some comprehension as to why I need to explain my position.

12 A list of the contributors to this book and their scholarly titles can be found in the sections on literature chapters at the end of the dissertation.

One of the reasons why I refer to myself as an outsider is because I do not speak either Sámi or Finnish languages and was born and raised in England, but I study the subject of Sámi shamanism in relation to religion and culture. Thus, making my role as a researcher and interactive person working across cultures somewhat challenging concerning representation but at the same time interesting and with potential for establishing and developing relations with indigenous people. I am also aware as to how, and through conducting outsider research, there are always risks of developing biasness and assumptions and also categorization of identities and cultures, which has for example, in the case of Sámi history in particular, happened extensively through the doctrine of the Church and dominant western research paradigms.

Understanding the complexity of the past has been one of the effective ways for learning how to meet Sámi society as an outsider and to understand in what ways the Sámi are a large part of the history of the nation states of the Nordic countries and are equal in every sense from my perspective. This approach helps to breakdown the old stereotypes and discriminatory research paradigms, which are best under-stood through what the clergymen and missionaries did concerning attempts at ethnically inter-marry-ing the Sámi with the nation states and the types of applications used in this process.

For example, because the noaidi in Sámi society are predominantly the persons my research has been primarily concerned with, with regard to interviews, it has been imperative to understand beforehand, how and throughout the course of Sámi history, the noaidi, their drums and sacred sites and objects were the principle targets and victims of interviews and interrogation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Therefore, these individuals were subjected to different kinds of duress as a way of extracting information from them, by persons from both within and outside their culture.

From historical research for example, in the writings of both linguist Johannes Schefferus’s first Eng-lish translation of Lapponia (1674), and the works of Pastor Lars Levi Laestadius, pubEng-lished as Fragments of Lappish Mythology (2002), whose original works were compiled and written between [1838-1845], the racialization of Sámi religion and culture is evident in many instances where information was collected, in some cases through corporal punishment.

These types of research practices were used against the Sámi in order to assimilate the culture into the nation states and outlaw the religious practices under the authority of both the political and religious establishments, which were fused together. In Schefferus’s accounts, there were also Sámi informants as well who were interviewed and who willingly cooperated with clergymen, missionaries and researchers.

Being fully aware of the nature and type of issues, which still exist in relation to how stereotypes of the culture have been developed from within the missionizing period, one does not have to be a genius to understand the required level of sensitivity, cooperation and understanding that is needed in representa-tion, participation observation and the handling and exposure to culturally sensitive material and its relational history to the land, ancestors, cosmos and religion.

The reasons for needing to know about what has happened in Sámi history is because the Sámi have their own history to tell, which is often coloured by the historical pain and grief that is left over from the brutal conversion to Christianity and the subsequent punishment and outlawing of Sámi religion and systematic attempts at decimation of their culture.

Moreover, one could make a further point and go as far as to say as to how everybody is an outsider to the drums made and used during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in relation to noaidi who fashioned and hammered them, even Sámi persons of today.

Figure 1. A painted wooden mural above the altar in Jukkasjärvi church, located in Swedish Sápmi. The picture has been carved and painted by Swedish artist Bror Hjort (1958). The church stands at the edge of the Tornio River and parts of it were constructed in the eighteenth century. Other parts were built earlier in the seventeenth century. The building was erected in the middle of an area that was a market place where Sámi people used to meet. The content of the picture shows Sámi persons being preached to by Lars Levi Laestadius. Photograph and copy write: Francis Joy (2015).

The wooden mural exhibits how the words, which are written in Swedish by the artist capture the ide-ology of the church at the time, and can still be found in some parts of Sápmi today. According to how the text is written, Laestadius is saying: Sade hi Drinkare, ni Tjuvar, ni Hor Karlar O Hor – Konor – Om Vändenneder (You are drunkards, you are thieves, you men and women are whores – Repent yourselves).

I have used this information here because it is a good example of the nature of the perspectives and at-titudes, which lie in the background to Sámi research and the use of the indigenous research paradigm where respect and value is attributed towards the Sámi people, their knowledge and culture is main-tained so not to repeat this type of outsiders perspective, which comes from religion.

As a result, and for ethical reasons as a researcher, there is a need to understanding how important it is to be respectful towards the memory of the ancestors of the Sámi when undertaking collaborative research. Meaning that in terms of what information Sámi persons wish to share, I must understand their right to self-governance and determination. These ethics are the foundation upon, which the research and my position in it have been built.

I do not wish to downplay the value of my research because I am not Finnish or Sámi insomuch as my cultural perspectives may seem somewhat different. In this type of research, I have come to under-stand throughout my interactions with Sámi people over a period of 12 years, how diversity in both

approaches and methods can have the same value as insider research, providing they are grounded in the ethical guidelines, codes of conduct and the representation required for undertaking indigenous re-search. Moreover, Cree scholar Shawn Wilson has explained this well in his book Research is Ceremony:

Indigenous research methods. Wilson (2008: 13), explains how a research

“Paradigm is a set of underlying beliefs that guide our actions. So a research paradigm is the be-liefs that guide our actions as researchers. These bebe-liefs include the way we view reality (ontol-ogy), how we think about or know this reality (epistemol(ontol-ogy), our ethics and morals (axiology) and how we go about gaining more knowledge about reality (methodology)”.

To expand on this further and as a way of explaining how I have anchored myself within the context of the research paradigm used throughout the analysis, it is important I define firstly, how the research question was formulated in relation to the approaches used and secondly, why I chose this particular topic as a field of research?

I have understood from the encounters with Sámi shamans and also visits to sacred sites that for me there is a sacred or holy purpose involved in this kind of research, which involves respect. In fact, some of the long trips to sacred sites throughout Finland have seemed at times like pilgrimages, where someone else’s notion of the sacred has been identified through rock paintings and anthropomorphic boulders and the offering of reindeer bones, antlers and skulls.

It has been a similar view as well regarding tracing the stories and current dwelling places of the noai-di drums in museums throughout Europe; the ones I have seen physically at the Siida Museum in Inari, at the Nordiska Museum in Stockholm and National Museum in Helsinki. Knowing these sacred sites and instruments have been so powerful and often at times dangerous because of the powers associated with their owners and use, common sense prevails where respect is due.

To elaborate further on the formulation of the research questions. After several years of investigations into Sámi shamanism in both a historical and modern context, I began to see and understand how sacred sites, prehistoric rock art, noaidi drum symbolism and cosmology appear to be relational with each other.

In order to be able to expand on these cultural practices and their relationality with one another it has been essential to become involved with Sámi shamans and to study the literature about the history in this context further afield from Finland. This is where the approaches used in the research herein have been forged.

My conclusions were that these relational ties to drums, rock art and sacred sites are likewise evident in Sweden and Norway as well. This has created the basis for further research into the subject matter, knowing that what separates the stories of Sámi oral traditions in Finland is the concept of borders between Sweden and Norway. In other words, it seems these borders, which did not exist in prehistory, are in my opinion, used as a method to divide research instead of unify it together. The title of the dissertation – research question, is my attempt at linking these stories of sacrifice, out-of-body journeys, and encounters with both human and non-human beings together and the cultural practices that underlie these portraits of culture.

My task as an outsider and the approaches I have used to collect and present the material presented to you below as research into the oral history of the Sámi, I am hoping will be a reflection of my position in the research. Moreover, and one of the central tenets, which I am also hoping the reader will be able to distinguish is how during both the approaches used and also the results of my analysis I have followed this route, which is well articulated by Wilson (2008: 126-127).

“Considering the needs of the audience must be an integral component of how we do research.

[…]. The relationship we form is an elemental component of an oral tradition and is generally

missing from written text. Words themselves, like music, laughter, crying, playing, dancing and other forms of expression, have the power to heal or harm. They can transfer information and enlighten others, but they can also be used as tools of social control and disempowerment. I can choose who I talk to, or what to share in a conversation, in a way that is not possible once my words are written down. How do I know that what I have written here will not be used against me or others in a way that was not my intention?

Accountability is built into the relationship that are formed in storytelling within an oral tradi-tion. As a storyteller, I am responsible for who I share information with, as well as ensuring that it is shared in an appropriate way, at the right place and time.

[…] Basic to dominant system research paradigms is the concept of the individual as the source and owner of knowledge. These paradigms are built upon a Eurocentric view of the world, in which the individual or object is the essential feature. This premise stands in stark contrast to an Indigenous worldview, where relationships are the essential feature of the paradigm”.

There is another dimension, which is also allocated to my position within the research as an outsider, that not only takes into account how the collection of material is formulated and then presented to the audience in such a way it should benefit the Sámi by being returned back to them as a reflection of their shared knowledge. This concerns sharing the results of the research across four continents where the Sámi reside throughout Sápmi, not only in relation to the continuity of culture regarding research into new types of shaman drums, but also my new theories regarding rock painting research and Sámi cultural heritage in central and southern Finland. More about this has been elaborated on by Hodgson (2011: 5).

“Outsider perspectives are important in bringing into relief the historical or contemporary es-sence of a community. While insiders (people from a community) have the necessary informa-tion, it often takes an outsider to catalyze identification of and discussions about important aspects of a community that some residents might take for granted or to foster communication and learning between disparate groups. Awareness of the very useful role that outsiders can play in catalyzing a more robust consciousness of a community’s culture, heritage, and history is important for […] [interdisciplinary research]”.

However, as straightforward as this might seem stated above, and as a result, in my own investigations and interviews with Sámi persons, for example, the on-going correspondence and relationship with drum maker Elle-Maaret Helander, interaction revealed how there is, still, to some extent, a deep secrecy and suspicion, which surrounds questions to Sámi people about their indigenous spirituality, of which shamanism takes up a central role and function today. I have been faced with responses from some Sámi persons such as: hands off our symbols and hands off our culture, in Finland.

It is also worth noting how, in Sámi culture, this secrecy and suspicion has become part of the taboos and customs of the culture mainly due to consequences of historical research practices undertaken by people from outside the culture and Christian domination through, which the Sámi people became ref-ugees in their own nation, distancing themselves from their heritage.

In the beginning of my studies into Sámi religion and culture 14 years ago, I was also not aware of these ethical requirements. Therefore, I have found beneficial in my role as a researcher to read-study both western and indigenous research practices and combine the two together, so not to repeat coloni-alist ways of devaluation.

In this sense, there has been two types of research undertaken, direct research, which has dealt with both primary and secondary source material, namely old and new types of drums, interviews and field-work to which there are literature sources from these times, and a combination of indirect and direct research that has meant engaging with prehistorical historical research, photographs and fieldwork in relation to rock painting, which have links with Sámi cultural practices of making art. Engagement with rock carvings and paintings as primary source material has taken place during field work.

In essence, conducting research into Sámi history revolves around meeting with oral narratives in a number of different ways. Namely, material concerning life events from three different eras, prehistory;

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and from contemporary Sámi drum makers and their handi-craft productions. It has been important to be critical concerning the underlying assumptions about the Sámi and their religious practices in relation to early researchers such as clergymen and missionaries.

Through reading what Sámi scholars have written concerning ethical guidelines for undertaking re-search into the cultures of indigenous peoples, it has been possible to formulate rere-search questions in order to approach the subject matter from the perspective of focusing on the underlying principles in Sámi culture on, which the value systems have been built. In this sense, shamanism plays a fundamental role. In each case, the research is governed by the principles that the material should make a positive contribution to Sámi culture, and not follow the same line of enquiry implemented at an earlier time by clergymen and missionaries where it was used against them.

I also wish to make a particular note to the reader as to how the rock painting research, which takes up a significant role in the dissertation in relation to unanswered questions about Sámi culture and its continuity and my position in the research.

From the sources listed below are what have been important for the analysis with regard to under-standing both rock paintings and drum symbolism and how these have been presented in literature and subsequently interpreted in relation to studying the links between prehistory and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many Sámi people do not know about these links, and it would be wrong to say that it is only the Sámi shamans in Finland who know more about the links. However, if one goes further afield, to Sweden and Norway, from my observations, these theories are better well known within Sámi circles. Therefore, I also find myself as working cross culturally.

One more point of interest is how there are no written documents from between the period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which provide comprehensive descriptions of analysis into rock paintings in Finland. Perhaps the most difficult part of this type of research is imagining how there would have been no borders in much earlier times between the Nordic countries, therefore, we cannot say that Norwegian rock art is Norwegian, Swedish rock art is Swedish and Finnish rock art is Finnish for certain.

Instead, uniting the whole area as formerly one large continent, in a similar way to how the Sámi are one people across four nations.