ABSTRACT
What significance does the return of old Sámi artefacts to local museums hold for contemporary Sámi communities? The Norwegian repatriation process has been named Bååstede, meaning “return” in the Southern Sámi language. Ethnographic objects which were of interest as representations of ideas or of other cultures had also been subject to a system of knowledge characterized by power imbalances. But in 2019, the Norsk Folkemuseum (Norwegian Museum of Cultural History) and the Kulturhistorisk museum (Museum of Cultural History – University of Oslo) returned 1,639 objects of their Sámi collection to Sámi museums in Norway. Viewing the museum as a contact zone provides an opportunity for change, however an important premise for the repatriation process to succeed is being aware of both the varying, contemporary asymmetrical relationships that are at work in the museum sector, and the historical lines in which the museum as a practice is anchored. In this chapter, three objects from the Bååstede project are selected to investigate what was or would become visible and invisible, tangible and intangible, in the meetings between the objects and the stakeholders at the local museum in Sápmi during the Bååstede process. Furthermore, ownership, repatriation, and power are discussed, as well as how decolonizing processes contribute to new understandings relevant to the dissemination of knowledge, and the management of and ongoing research in museums.
