ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the extraordinary diffusion and impact of the new concept of “non-status Sámi” in political and academic discourses in Finland. The controversial concept was introduced to the public for the first time in 2012, in a PhD thesis written by Erika Sarivaara. In the thesis, Sarivaara used the concept to describe people who have Sámi ancestors, but who are not formally recognized as such, and to demand that also these people should be included in Sámi Parliament’s electoral roll. Since its inception, the Sámi Parliament has opposed these claims based on an argument that the people the concept describes are actually Finns, not Sámi, and the concept has provoked strong criticism and controversy also within the Sámi community at large. Despite this, the concept of “non-status Sámi” has gained a strong position in Finland’s formal indigenous policy, reaching government reports, and becoming a basis for political and juridical decision making just two years after its inception. In this chapter, sociologist Anni-Siiri Länsman and information scholar Terttu Kortelainen seek to explain this success by mapping how the concept was taken up and diffused online during the years after Sarivaara’s PhD. Building on an extensive online material they have gathered between the years 2012 and 2017, the authors argue that the concept’s success owes, to a large extent, to the activity of highly influential bloggers who shared content, wrote about the topic and promoted the political agenda behind the concept taking advantage of political networks and issue publics which pre-exist the concept itself.
