ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the complexity of implementing a form of non-state citizenship in the European nation state-centric tradition of citizenship. It analyzes the debate and political consequences of establishing an indigenous polity and citizenship in the context of the only Indigenous people in the European Union, the Sami people. The chapter overviews how the concept of Indigenous people has been adopted and transformed within international legal and political framework. It also analyzes the interplay of international norms, most importantly the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169 (1989), regulating indigenous citizenship, and the establishment of the indigenous Sami polity in Finland. The chapter looks at a political struggle over Sami and indigenous citizenship that institutionalizing the Sami people's position in Finland as Indigenous people by legislative measures—that is, establishing Sami cultural autonomy governed by the Sami parliament—has engendered.
