ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the tensions and dilemmas that Norwegian researchers face when studying Sámi visual heritage as members of the colonizing majority society. The chapter, which employs an autoethnographic method, reflects on the authors’ experiences of engaging in an extensive study of the uses of Sámi photography funded by the Norwegian Research Council’s Sámi Program, and on a range of ethical and methodological issues and questions that were raised as a result. The authors argue that while they now realize that Sámi photographic history cannot be negotiated by other than the Sámi communities themselves, they also believe that negotiation of a difficult past is needed on behalf of the colonizing majority. “The images that now form part of Sámi heritage also belong to our own disgraceful and repressed past. Negotiating history may from this perspective mean critically addressing the different agendas that led to the production of this visual heritage”.
