ABSTRACT
This chapter explores an ongoing process of establishing local and Indigenous user rights in Finnmark, northern Norway. It explores how landscapes are enacted by particular legal practices. In line with Studies of Technology and Science (STS)-inspired observations of the intervening powers of law and bureaucracy, the chapter focuses on how the Finnmark Commission articulates Sami and other local nature perceptions as an emic concept, as an outcome. It examines the current procedures of the Finnmark Commission against the comparative backdrop of Australian Native Title, highlighting some important differences. It then explores these differences in relation to the colonial/post-colonial context in both nation-states, considering differences as well as similarities in relation to their respective colonial histories, notion of equality and the distinction between settler nations and non-settler nations. It discusses the implications of such differences in relation to future imaginaries, ontological differences, and suggests that rectifying processes perform not only the allocation of user rights but also a form of ontological politics.
