Beneath the Canopy : Sami Cultural Heritage in the Forests of Jokkmokk

Sammanfattning

Forests in Swedish Sápmi are socio-ecological and political landscapes, co-produced through historically situated relationships between humans, non-humans, and governance regimes, structured by unequal power relations in which Western extractivist and conservationist knowledge systems are privileged over Indigenous ones.Focusing on the Sami of Jokkmokk, this thesis examines forests as living landscapes that sustain livelihoods, memory, and spiritual relations, while functioning as political and epistemic arenas. Sami relationships with forests are grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems based on reciprocity and relational ontologies, underpinning practices such as reindeer herding as well as broader cultural, ethical, and cosmological frameworks. Industrial forestry and extractive industries increasingly impose legible, manageable landscapes, marginalising Sami epistemologies and exerting cumulative pressure on Sami territories. This threatens Sami livelihoods, lands, cosmological relations, and the cultural and archaeological traces embedded in forests such as culturally modified trees, sacred sites, place names, and oral histories.Drawing on a multi-layered theoretical framework, this thesis foregrounds forests as co-produced and contested spaces to demonstrate how forest transformation and destruction are inherently political acts rooted in epistemic injustice. Addressing these conflicts requires approaches that recognise forests as relational landscapes rooted in history, and that take Indigenous knowledge systems seriously as vital to just and sustainable forest futures.