Author:
Korinna Korsström-Magga, DA researcher
Department of Art Education
University of Lapland, Finland
Art education extending information about Sámi reindeer herders
This research project seeks to reveal and grow the understanding of Sámi reindeer herders' contemporary daily lives. The Sámi reindeer herders encounter ignorance about their livelihood. Often, people recognise reindeer herding as a plain cultural lifestyle. Most people still know little about the Sámi culture and people (ECRI, 2019). The Sámi reindeer herders experience that they have to continuously educate decision-makers, tourists and even neighbours about themselves, their background and the basic needs for contemporary reindeer herding. In Sápmi, the competition for land use is getting stronger. The counterpart sees the Sámi reindeer herders as contrarians and does not entirely understand the need to protect reindeer pastures before the benefits of wind power, mining or tourism.
Community-based art education has contributed to informal art education presented in Arctic communities (Hiltunen, 2009). In this study, I used the art-based action research (ABAR) strategy (Jokela, 2019) to conduct research with Sámi reindeer herder families in the Finnish regions of Sápmi. ABAR, involving community-based art education, has been developed in the Department of Art Education at the University of Lapland in Finland, primarily to address and support the needs of the communities in the circumpolar North. The art-based action research emphasises participatory and co-research methods, and the research is cyclic, according to action research traditions (Huhmarniemi et al., 2021; Jokela et al., 2015).
Five reindeer herder families joined this research project and photographed their daily lives for one year. Of the photographs, they produced an exhibition called Boazoeallin (a word for Reindeer Life in English). Later, they published a book on the photographs under the same name. With this action, they sought to display and distribute positive information about themselves to other people.
My position as a researcher is particular. I am in an insider-outsider position. I settled in the North thirty years ago and have shared my daily life within the Sámi reindeer herders' culture. I recognise the ignorance of the majority culture, and I can identify with the reindeer herders' indignation about how they are met as citizens. My insider position has been a great advantage when I started this study. It was easy to connect with people, discuss mutual daily life, and reindeer herder moments. However, I am a researcher, born and raised in the South, seen as an outsider. My academic field and profession as an art educator also put me in an outsider position. The research environment embraces different worlds and cultures that have a risk of growing frictions and misinterpretations. The research setting requires sensitivity and special ethical consideration. The Sámi Indigenous background of the families sets particular attention to ethical research and working methods due to former harsh and abusive Sámi research. This exposition cut into cultural challenges that an art educator-facilitator-researcher, born and raised in a Eurocentric culture, can encounter in research within an Indigenous culture.
I introduce the research environment in which the Sámi reindeer herders' daily life and cultural background set the starting point for the creative action. I present the ABAR strategy, which is the methodological choice of the project, which, through community-based art education, has contributed to the 'new genre Arctic art'. From the perspectives of the research strategy, I explore the challenges and frictions of this art-based action research, discussing the co-research action and viewpoints of different art conceptions. Lastly, I frame a few features of the art-based actions with the reindeer herder families that contributed to successful collaboration.
Operating in Sápmi
This research is conducted in nearby Anárjávri (Lake Inari), in the Finnish part of Sápmi. Sápmi, which is the Davvi Sámi (Northern Sámi) word for the land of the Sámi people, extends over the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula. The Sámi people have been living, hunting, fishing and herding reindeer in this area since the land ice melted. For a long time, northern Scandinavia was sparsely habited. According to Lehtola (2015), the Sámis were living in Siidas, a word for a Sámi community, and generally, they changed their residences during the year according to fishing and hunting seasons. The nomadic reindeer herding that Sámis are generally referred to covers only a part of the Sámis, and it developed at the end of the 16th Century. Lehtola assumes one reason was land disagreements between the settler population and the Sámis in the Siidas. The nomadic reindeer herders raised enormous herds that destined their seasonal movement and living as nomads (Lehtola, 2015, p. 38).
The church in Pielpajärvi, Anár (Pielpajärven kirkko, 2024). This building, situated in the wilderness and only reachable by foot or boat, was built in 1760 and replaced the older building, which was built in 1646. The church is not connected to a village. The Sámi people used to gather here during winter to trade goods. At the same time, they joined the church service and were charged by the taxmen. Picture from Wikipedia: Pielpajärven erämaakirkko, 2024.
According to Lehtola (2015), the colonisation of Sápmi began a long time ago. The southern people's exploration and expansion of northern lands had already begun in the 12th Century by building churches and proselytising the Sámi people to Christianity. Also, the colonial nations executed taxation in combination with church ceremonies. In the 16th Century, the national competition of Sápmi expanded, backed by the aim of gaining taxes to cover the costs of the ongoing wars in Europe and access to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The northern nations' competition about the Sápmi region continued for centuries until the borders were set at the end of the 19th Century, without considering the Sámi people's rights in their regions (Lehtola, 2015, p.48).
The Sámi people living in the Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Russian parts of Sápmi are separated by national borders and assimilated with the majority nation's religions, regulations and institutional systems (Minde, 2005). There are about 80,000–100,000 Sámi people. Over 50% of Finland's Sámi population lives outside the Finnish Sápmi region. There are nine different Sámi languages, of which three are active and spoken in Finland: Anarâškielâ (Inari Sámi language), Nuõrttsää’mǩiõll (Skolt Sámi language), and Davvi Sámi (Northern Sámi language) (Roto et al., 2005; Samer.se, n.d.). The centuries of colonialism and assimilation have caused the distinction and loss of the Sámi language, changes in family structures and ways of living, and disruptions in traditional livelihoods and rights to use the land. In the 1970–80s, Sámi culture was in a poor situation, but the Sámi people's efforts to revitalise their culture have started to give positive results (Kuokkanen, 2020; Lehtola, 2015). The Sámi languages have been supported by establishing school classes, organising education in the Sámi language at national schools, and implementing language immersion activities for children under school age. It is possible in the Sámi language to follow daily news and children's programs broadcast on television.
The Sámi Parliament, which has been operating in Finnish Sápmi since the early 1970s, governs and implements Sámi culture in the Finnish society. The parliament represents the Sámi in national and international connections and attends to the issues concerning the Sámi language, culture and position as an Indigenous people. In Finland, it functions under the administrative sector of the Finnish Ministry of Justice. The Sámi Parliament has the right to make suggestions but not to make decisions about the Sámi people's affairs in Finland (Sámi Parliament, 2024). Similar institutions attend to Sámi issues in Sweden and Norway.
Norway is the only country in the Sápmi region that has ratified Convention 169, which recognises the Sámi as an Indigenous people and not solely as an ethnic group, like immigrants. Ratification allows the Sámis the right to self-determination in developing their culture and initiating measures of the authorities' obligation to support this work and the right to determine the lands and waters in their region. Finland's and Sweden's governments have not ratified Convention 169. The debate about ethnic backgrounds, the right to govern over land and waters and conceding that colonialism has occurred in Sápmi has been a long-term confrontation for the national decision-makers. The debate has often been heated and criticised among local people on social media, and young Sámi activists have also addressed the matter by public demonstrations.
Reindeer herding in the Finnish regions of Sápmi
Information from the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry and the Association of World Reindeer Herders (2024) confirm reindeer herding as a Sámi traditional livelihood. In Sweden and Norway, reindeer herding is restricted only to Sámi people, but in Finland, Finns are also allowed to own reindeer. The northern borders between Finland, Sweden and Norway were blocked at the end of the 19th Century, and contemporary reindeer herding has slight differences in the different national regions of Sápmi. In Finland, reindeer wander free in vast fenced herder districts under the surveillance of reindeer herders. The fifty-four reindeer districts in Finland are generally about 500 square kilometres large. The northernmost 13 districts are the Sámi reindeer herder districts. The art-based research project described in this exposition is carried out in the surroundings of Anárjávri, which is in the Sámi reindeer herder region (Reindeer Herding, n.d.).
The reindeer herders' community is rooted in Sámi family traditions, and they broadly define the word family. It includes the closest family members, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins with their families. Also, non-related persons can be recognised as family members if they manage their reindeer in the same herd. The reindeer herders' daily work embraces every family member, and often, all hands are needed to complete the tasks smoothly. A child born in a reindeer herder's family usually gets his or her reindeer earmark as an infant and is recognised as a helping hand and reindeer herder from the early beginning. Commonly, minor children follow adults at all places and during all day hours.
Today, vocational schools are educating young reindeer herders. However, because special skills and place-specific knowledge are tightly connected to each family's traditions and working methods, the main reindeer herders' work is learned by working with the family. The Sámi vocational schools use place-specific pedagogy, which has similarities with land-based education (Wildcat et al., 2014), and the young reindeer herder students study in general, the practical reindeer herder's skills at home with their families (Saamelaisalueen koulutuskeskus, n.d.).
The contemporary reindeer herder's livelihood has dramatically changed over the last 50 years. The older adults have experienced times when there were only a few roads, and the herding was operated mainly by skiing and herding dogs. Today, helicopters, drones, and radars are a common help when gathering herds from the fells and the forests for reindeer separations and slaughter. The reindeer herders earn their living by selling reindeer meat, but yearly income is hard to achieve due to the high production costs. It is a question of balancing the amount of reindeer, successful calving, efficiency, market price, and the multiple costs of livelihood. In addition, livelihood depends on climate change and other stakeholders' demands for reindeer pastures. (Reindeer Herding, n.d.; Reindeer Herders' Association, n.d.; Samer, n.d.).
The reindeer herders share pastures with other stakeholders and land users, such as the energy and mining industry, forestry and tourism. The global demands of this kind of industry leave the local husbandry's needs in the background. The reindeer herders have experienced that their livelihood and the essentials of herding and welfare are seldom fully understood. The five reindeer herder families that joined this research project saw the potential of reaching decision-makers and broadening people's notions about the reindeer herder's contemporary daily lives through this project using art-based actions.
Árbediehtu is inherited Sámi Knowledge
The Sámis call their traditional Knowledge árbediehtu (a Davvi Sámi word describing inherited knowledge). Guttorm (2011) defines árbediehtu as collective wisdom and skills passed on in generations, both orally and through work and practical experience (Guttorm, 2011). Gaski (2013) described the Sámi Indigenous Knowledge as an ability to read nature and its inhabitants, also a skill orally passed on between generations. Hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding are skills taught inside the family, along with broad place-specific knowledge about the environment derived from ancient times. Reindeer herding embraces árbediehtu comprehensively. The knowledge of managing reindeer as an animal and a herd has been developed among the Sámi people for generations. In addition, it includes place-specific knowledge of the environment and nature.
Árbediehtu includes other skills and features typical for Sámi, such as duodji (The Davvi Sámi word for crafts and Sámi art craft). Reindeer antlers, bones and hides are used for duodji. The most significant of árbediehtu are the Sámi languages, which are the most critical tradition bearers and pass on stories, yoiks (songs), attitudes, and specific words describing weather, environment, family and beliefs. Árbediehtu is, on the whole, a worldview and a culture that embraces the Sámi people. The Sami population collectively and individually possesses it, changing according to communities, families, time and place. For example, traditions, reindeer earmarks, tools, clothes, and words are place-specific and allied with families. They appear to have similarities but, at the same time, distinct differences. The details may reveal silent knowledge and specific information about individuals that is hard for an outsider to understand or adapt to in Western education (Guttorm, 2011; Nordin Jonsson, 2011).
The reindeer herder families in this research project had unique traditions and ways of living their daily lives but also similarities in working methods and perspectives about reindeer herding that all contribute to árbediehtu. Their photographs present activities and life values distinct for the Sámi reindeer herder communities living in the regions around Anárjávri. It is not only a question of environmental skills, reindeer herder tools and items used in everyday life during the year. It is also a deep appreciation of being part of nature and valuing the benefit of the possibility to enjoy and live in and with it. The photographs conveyed the beauty of wandering the same paths as your ancestors and using the knowledge about your environment that you have learned in your family. Árbediehtu is the Sámi culture and is, in essence, also vivid and mutable, individual and place-specific, so it can not be converted into measuring or statistics without losing its meaning. Traditional Knowledge is complex and challenging to explain without romantically idealising the community.
About reusing but not abusing Indigenous Knowledge
Academic interest in the Arctic and the Indigenous people living in the North is high. Solutions to global challenges, such as climate crises and sustainable development, are common concerns. Indigenous Knowledge is seen as a significant source in finding answers to these shared interests, but Indigenous Knowledge challenges Western science in many ways. For instance, the non-measurable and mutable nature of Indigenous Knowledge, according to time, place, and nature, has a philosophical nature that differs from Eurocentric perspectives. According to Gaski (2013), the Sámi Indigenous knowledge (árbediehtu) is gaining space in the scholarly world. He stressed that Sámi scholars do not seek to create an epistemology of their own; instead, they wish to add the Sámi perspectives into research. Kuokkanen (2020) also stressed the significance of adding Indigenous perspectives and paradigms to the centre of academic discourse.
Discussions of Western knowledge versus Indigenous Knowledge and ownership of knowledge have led to confusion. The local non-Indigenous people's place-specific knowledge appears similar to that of the Indigenous peoples, and it has also been passed on inside the families over generations. Heated debates on performing skills, making handicrafts or presenting art have stirred multicultural communities. Guttorm (2011) stressed that Indigenous people have experienced that their Traditional Knowledge has been exploited, misused and commercialised into a commodity to be bought and sold. However, even if a particular skill is recognised as included in árbediehtu, it does not exclude that non-Indigenous people also possess the same skill (Guttorm, 2011). The environment and place-specific terms teach the inhabitants, and knowledge is often built and developed through cultural interactions. Performing and using Indigenous Knowledge in Western research requires sensitive and ethical considerations. Indigenous peoples have called the world's attention to their right to control their Traditional Knowledge (Battiste & Henderson, 2000).
According to Schäfer et al. (2023), patent, copyright and branding are ordinary aspects of owning "knowledge". The ownership of knowledge is also a question of power – who has the right to say what kind of information is scientific, universal, local, traditional or every day? (Schäfer et al., 2023). Simply, it is a question of giving credit to the origins of knowledge. However, this can sometimes be diffuse, as people's skills and traditions have developed during generations in multicultural circumstances.
The sorting of the origins of knowledge systems has given birth to a diverse collection of terms that define knowledge differently: Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), Indigenous Knowledge (IK), árbediehtu, local knowledge, northern knowledge, community knowledge and cultural knowledge overlap and have similarities but also differences. Huhmarniemi and Jokela (2020) stressed that cultural sensitivity is needed to avoid the cultural appropriation and exploitation of Indigenous cultures. It is ethically important to inform the participants, as the global audience, of the origins of the materials or the Indigenous themes used for inspiration in the ABAR projects. Huhmarniemi and Jokela (2020) preferred to use the term "northern knowledge", expressed and coming forth in multicultural northern art-based projects to express a shared knowledge of the people in the Arctic that is performed and built in the ABAR projects. I use the term "cultural knowledge" when I describe the specific knowledge of reindeer herders that they perform in the Boazoeallin exhibition and book (Korsström-Magga, 2023). These terms include, of course, Sámi Indigenous knowledge.
Tourist shops sell fake, colourful Sámi clothes and souvenirs. However, Sámi handicrafts with the Sámi Duodji label indicate that they are a true Sámi artefact or handicraft made by a Sámi person. It confirms that the item fulfils certain qualities and that Sámi culture is vivid. Picture: Sámi Duodji, 2024.
Art-based action research (ABAR) responding to the multicultural North
The art-based research strategy, producing contemporary art with communities, was developed at the University of Lapland in the Department of Art Education to extend scientific requirements. ABAR originates in action research methodology but combines artistic practices with regional development and community empowerment. The research methods are similar to action research. Actions such as mapping, setting aims, planning, practical action, reflection, evaluation, and theorising are based on art, art-based actions, culture, and aesthetics. The fieldwork is happening with local communities in Arctic regions, offering possibilities to participate, contribute meaningful themes and topics, and bring their culture and lifestyle forward. The action is generally led by an art educator/artist-researcher using community-based art education methods and facilitating the community's art actions (Jokela et al., 2015; Jokela & Huhmarniemi, 2018; Jokela, 2019).
The development work of art-based action research with communities in the North has contributed to manifold art events, exhibitions and artistic community-based activities. The projects have illuminated culturally valuable art and information about local people, and Arctic art presents a distinct characterised art form emphasising Arctic Indigenous people and the environment. The university's projects have often occurred in a multicultural, pedagogical, and exploring manner, and a new concept of art, the 'new genre of Arctic art' contributed by the actions of community-based art education, is being shaped.
The term' new genre Arctic art' arises from the concept of 'new genre public art', coined by Suzanne Lacy (1995) and defines socially engaged and sociopolitical public art that involves participatory aesthetics. Participatory and community engagement are the fundamental concepts of 'new genre Arctic' art, which places community-based art education at the centre of participatory, interactive and collaborative creative work. According to Jokela et al. (2021), 'new genre Arctic art' promotes cultural continuity and the importance of cultural politics in decision-making (Jokela et al., 2021).
Jokela et al. (2021) argue that Arctic communities share several issues and challenges, such as defending nature or seeking innovations for a sustainable climate future that multicultural art-based interactions can confront. These topics can be processed and brought forward by art. The 'new genre Arctic art' sets a mutual ground for Indigenous and non-Indigenous art and forms a collaboration and interaction between artists, art educators, craftsmen, local people, and communities in the Arctic. The shared intention is to promote dialogues, encounters and collaborations and raise mutual understanding between different communities, researchers and policymakers in the Arctic (Jokela et al., 2021). The projects have also invited international Arctic immigrants to share knowledge on the 'new genre Arctic art' arenas (see Huhmarniemi & Hiltunen, 2022). The 'new genre Arctic art' is forming an Arctic concept of community art. Community art is a new way for the local communities to confront challenges, collaborate and distribute information about themselves. The reindeer herders' action in community-based art education contributes to 'new genre Arctic art.'
The University of Lapland’s EU-funded ArctChildren project (2008) was a cross-border project targeting schoolchildren’s well-being. The photograph was taken in the schoolyard in Lovozero (Russia) in 2008, showing the building of reindeer statues in the snow with the school’s pupils. Photograph: Korinna Korsström-Magga, 2008.
The ethical levels of co-research
Community-based research is participatory, in which the participants are allowed to decide how the research is conducted. The research action engages community members and researchers in a joint co-research process in which all contribute equally (Whyte, 1991). These principles support the ideals of decolonising methodologies (Smith, 2012). In the research project with the reindeer herder families, I sought to find their interest in creative and artistic ways of tooling their tasks to open their daily lives to an audience. Abundant and enthusiastic participation could give a manifold picture of their reality. Each community artist's, art educator's and researcher's dream is to gain the community's undivided attention and interest for the mutual aim. However, in reality, the ultimate situation is often complex to achieve.
Arnstein's ladder of participation from 1969 is still current. It describes the different stages of co-research and illustrates a typology of eight levels of involvement. Arnstein (1969) describes citizens' power as being determined by the ladder. The bottom rungs, where the participant has little or no power, are called manipulation (1) and therapy (2). These two levels describe actions in which participants are educated or cured because of the action. Levels 3, 4 and 5 describe informing, consulting and placation. The participants are invited to participate in the action to act as informants, providing knowledge or advice. Arnstein stresses these levels as tokenism, as the participants will not necessarily be acknowledged the way they prefer and will not know how their information will be used. The powerholders continue to have the right to decide what information they deliver. Citizen power is realised at levels 6, 7 and 8, which Arnstein calls partnership, delegated power and citizen control. The partnership enables the participants to negotiate and engage with the powerholders. At levels 7 and 8, the participants obtain the majority of decision-making or total power. The ladder is, of course, a simplification of real situations (Arnstein, 1969, p. 217). Research is too often described as co-research when participatory action reaches ladders 3–5 and is, in practice, ethically questionable. For example, it is unlikely that decoloniality can proceed in Indigenous research on this level.
During this study, I questioned my research actions and critically contemplated the acts of co-research. The families are not involved in my academic writing process, mainly because this contributes to first-hand community-based art education. However, the information and articles about the community are written with their consent, including the photographs shown in presentations and the articles. I publish my articles and this research in English and send them to the participants, but they probably do not read them. Reading academic texts in a foreign language on an unfamiliar topic is challenging. I have sought to translate in short terms what the articles have addressed. The families' presence in the academic realm has been visual through photographs and presentations that I have shown in academic settings and sought to present ethically and respectfully. The researcher's academic discussions in conferences, presentations, and seminars are challenging to bring near the participants, and the researcher must deeply consider his or her ethical responsibility. In this study, co-research was realised through the reindeer herders' actions of visualising and revealing their daily lives to others when we made the Boazoeallin exhibition and the book. Linking the actions to the academic world has been my responsibility. I also inform the participants of my academic presentations, where their photographs are involved.
Sápmica. The ongoing settler colonialism of Sápmi. Painting by Korinna Korsström-Magga, 2024.
I have recently, driven by this study, dived deeper into the Sámi people's colonial history and cultural situation. I identify the concerns about the future of the Arctic’s environment. The painting Sápmica is an ethnographic study of my interpretation of the contemporary matters of the Sámi reindeer herders. Leavy (2015) explained that ethnographic researchers in visual arts-based participatory work also use multi-method research designs in which they may use visual imagery and elaborate the data (Leavy, 2015, p. 232).
The art educator-researcher’s good aims and moral sense
Community-based art education, community arts education, and socially engaged art projects are recognised approaches for researchers in the art-based field. Art-based action research seeks cultural collaboration and conversation, crossing boundaries across institutions and communities (Hiltunen, 2009; Härkönen, 2021; Jokela, 2015; Lin, 2023). The art-based way of producing and revealing knowledge through art is unique and can produce meaningful information, which is hard to convey through traditional academic research strategies (Barone & Eisner, 2012; McNiff, 1998). Hiltunen (2009) described the distinction of community-based art education, where art education practices are tailored for and with the community. The art educator and researcher must know the community's history and culture (Hiltunen, 2009). The art educator, who acts as a facilitator, mentor, observer, and researcher, is often addressed as an authority in the project, even if co-research is the aim of the research actions.
I am part of the reindeer herders’ community, which has benefits for my work as a researcher. During my thirty years of everyday life in a Sámi reindeer herders' community, I have learned about contemporary reindeer herding, the Sámi culture and languages. As a researcher in this study, I see myself as an insider and an outsider. According to Sherry (2008), the term insider researcher describes a situation in which the researcher is a part of the research topic. I have used this advantage in interpreting the reindeer herders' photographs, which has helped me plan the Boazoeallin exhibition and the research action. Walter and Andersen (2016) stressed that a researcher's social position matters: 'It underpins the research questions we see, the answers we seek, the way we go about seeking those answers, the interpretations we make, and the theoretical paradigms that make sense to us' (Walter & Andersen, 2016, p.46).
As I share the experiences of the reindeer herders' daily life, I am in this research autoethnographic. The approach has gained attention and raised questions of research objectivity and ethical issues. Foster (1996) criticises in his essay "The Artist as Ethnographer" the cases where the authority of the artist (or in community art, the art educator-researcher) goes unquestioned. The artist uses material from locals' everyday life, turning it into an anthropological exhibit in an institution, for example, a museum or represented by a University. Foster stresses that art can deconstruct the collaborative interaction between the artist and the local community in ethnographic terms (Foster, 1996). Regardless of the benevolence of the research, this can grow into a skewed power relation.
The artist-art educator-researcher is the link between the community and the "others" and is the facilitator and contributor for the community's sake. The balance of credit given to the parties is essential. However, without the link to the publicity, the functionality of activism and change-related art-based action research would be weak, if not invisible. Artist Suzanne Lacy's enormous collaborative community-based art projects, which she calls "new genre public art" (Lacy, 1995), have a tenet of activism as well as socially responsible and ethically sound public art. Her art-based aims have targeted inequity for race and gender, and the benevolence of the projects is unquestionable. One of the functions of her projects is the emphasis on publicity, and she, as an artist and person, is a driving force. As an artist designing the events and facilitator distributing the information, she is in a distinct position of power, which, in this case, is a positive aspect of the community's aims.
The research process with the families
This art-based action research had two aims. One was to support the reindeer herders by informing their contemporary livelihood and culture to other people. The other aim was to explore the possibilities of and develop the features of community-based art education in environments where people do not count contemporary art in their daily lives. Five reindeer herder families who live in the regions of Anárjávri joined the project. The families include the Davvisápmelaš (the North Sámi people), the Anarâšah (the Inari Sámi people) and Finnish people in mixed marriages. I also live in the same region and share my daily life in a reindeer herders' community, which has helped me to act and understand the aims and actions of the families. We all knew one another from before.
The art-based action and its frames grew from the Sámi reindeer herder families and their environment with its place-specific features through joint planning and discussion about the participants' objectives. All the families aimed to advance the position of contemporary reindeer herding in the majority society, and involving art was a new way for them to distribute their information. My preliminary plan of action was to first investigate their daily life from the perspectives of the reindeer herders' by photographs and discussions. Then, we could arrange art workshops and build contemporary art for a pedagogical and informative exhibition.
We started the research action using the Photovoice method and approach that Wang and Burris developed in 1997. Photovoice is used as a participatory research approach to bring forth the perspectives of the research participants through digital storytelling. The strategy seeks to empower and support people distant from the decision-makers' priorities, and it has also been modified in community-based participatory Indigenous research (Kantonen, 2005; Castleden, 2008; Anderson et al., 2023). The reindeer herder families explored their daily lives for one year by photographing with their cell phones. I instructed them to capture moments that depicted situations people do not know or think of within reindeer herding. The aim was not to deepen the romanticised Lapland landscapes distributed in tourist commercials nor to retain the understanding of an ancient Sámi reindeer herder culture from centuries ago. The aim was to reveal a contemporary reindeer herders' culture and daily life presented from the reindeer herders' point of view and inform about a livelihood and culture that is vivid and important in an Arctic future.
During the year, I met each family twice to discuss their photographs and discover their strengths and ambitions regarding what kind of art workshop would interest them the most. At this point, I noticed that finding time for the art workshops was challenging, and most family members were not inspired to join such activities. Suddenly the Sámi Museum Siida offered the exhibition time much earlier than we had planned. We decided to build an exhibition of the photographs the families had taken during the year. We placed the photographs in installations built of reindeer herders' tools and items, describing the reindeer herders' working environments. We named the exhibition Boazoeallin.
After the exhibition, the families wanted to continue their informative work about reindeer herding, and they used their photographs to publish a book called Boazoeallin. We designed a draft of the book using a photo book design service on the net. The book's structure presents the year of contemporary reindeer herding, starting from the late spring when the calves are born. It follows the Sámi reindeer herder families' different tasks and daily doings at home and in nature through the families' photographs enhanced with short explanations, mainly in Finnish. However, it also has inserts of Anarâškielâ (Inari Sámi), Davvi Sámi (Northern Sámi language) and English.
As a member of a reindeer herder family, I planned the exhibition and the book together with the others. As an art educator, I facilitated the exhibition and the publication of the book. As a researcher, I investigated the features of community-based art education, including co-research, participation, democratic research and decolonisation of research methodologies. Hiltunen (2009) notes that the art educator-researcher-artist's many assignments are typical for community-based art education projects (Hiltunen, 2009).
The photographs in the exhibition at the Siida Sámi Museum were shown as installations constructed from items and tools from the reindeer herder families’ daily lives. The installation above is by Jouni Lukkari and the one on the right is by the Sara family. Exhibition photographer: Korinna Korsström-Magga, 2017.
Collaboration and cultural encounters
The Sámi culture in this research project was not an objective in the first place, but all the families involved are Sámi or have intermarriage with Finnish people but live and foster the Sámi culture in their daily lives. The Sámi Indigeneity has a significant influence on the research action. The Sámis have encountered harsh abuse through research, which affects how they relate to research. As a researcher, I am seen as an outsider since I am a person born in the South, raised in a Western culture, interpreting Indigenous worldviews for an academic audience.
Walter and Andersen (2016) declared that non-Indigenous researchers can conduct Indigenous research, but they clarify that a lack of Indigenousness affects the researcher's social space. There are always parts of the information the research project participants produce that may be misinterpreted because of cultural and social underpinnings (Walter & Andersen, 2016). Paksi and Kivinen (2021), researchers with experience conducting research as outsiders to research communities, agreed that the outsider position profoundly affects the reciprocity and power relations between the community and researchers. They argued for flexible research methodologies and emphasised that a researcher's relationship with community members, cultural values, and the research topic are vital elements of the research (Paksi & Kivinen, 2021).
Reindeer herding is a livelihood without specific schedules. Some working days do not end, and occasionally, there are days when nothing specific happens. As a researcher and art educator, I must respect the participants’ work and their possible rest. This photograph is from the ending of a reindeer separation late in the polar night. Photograph: Suvi Kustula, 2017.
My life experiences in a reindeer herder family have taught me that reindeer herding and the family's affairs and privacy are highly valued. As a person not born in the community, the learning of family ties, people's background and position in family or reindeer herding is endless. The researcher's cultural knowledge is ultimately tested, and sensitive collaboration is a fundamental approach. I sought to structure the collaboration with the Sámi reindeer herder families according to their participation possibilities. Time, long distances, other work and more meaningful family events have occasionally slowed the research. The Photovoice method is well-suited for research. Each family had one or two persons photographing their daily doings during one year, and they worked on the process without my presence.
The families have given their consent to research, and they have all rights to their photographs and have the right to withdraw photographs that I suggest for publication in academic articles and presentations. The open interviews with each family are confidential and safeguarded, and the main interest of the discussions was to form inspiration and ideas for informative artwork for the exhibition. Before the Photovoice action started, I was dubious about how the photography would work. I thought the families would feel it intruding on their privacy, and I assured the participants that their photographs would not be displayed publicly without their consent. During our discussions, I realised that the families enjoyed exploring their daily activities through photography. They found interest and beauty in daily actions. These moments arouse memories or inspiration of future working methods and, of course, in the pictures of their duodji, their Sámi handicraft and cultural actions. In short, their photographs pictured árbediehtu.
The open interviews, which were long, familiar discussions, were in Finnish for convenience's sake. Some families speak Sámi languages, but all parties speak and understand Finnish. I understand Davvi Sámi and Anarâškielâ fairly well, and moments of multilingual discussions did not hinder the discussion. The discussions explained moments of work with reindeer, daily life in the family, and appreciation of their environment and nature. I could identify with their sentiments as I recognised similarities to my own daily life.
Frictions of conception and values of art
The community-based art education project with the reindeer herder families was sometimes challenging. Still, it gave me new insight into and understanding of my work as an art educator (Korsström-Magga, 2019a, 2019b). For example, even though I already knew the Sámi reindeer herder families' culture well, I was too rooted in the Western academic spheres and my conception of contemporary art. My preliminary action plan of making bold contemporary art for an exhibition caused embarrassed behaviour and silent withdrawal. I realised after a while that I was working with a group of people unfamiliar with the concept of Western art or contemporary art and did not count art as a primary interest in their lives. The participants' unfamiliarity with contemporary art does not indicate that they exclude artistic items and aesthetics from their daily lives. On the contrary, the Sámi people have a distinct desire for art and design, brought forward through duodji, the Sámi traditional art and handicraft. Traditional Indigenous art maintains and delivers knowledge about ancient Indigenous cultures, living and beliefs. Duodji has been and is still made in every Sámi reindeer herder family, and all the families involved in this project are producers of duodji. The families make traditional items and clothes of reindeer hide, leather, antlers, and bones used daily, as well as decorative skilled products for special occasions. Duodji embraces far more handicrafts than this. In the Sámi community are people devoted to duodji, making skilled handicrafts of roots, wood, metals and, of course, the gákti (a Davvi Sámi word for the Sámi traditional dresses).
Reflecting on the Photovoice process, I understood the art-based activity from a new perspective. Visually exploring their lives was not intruding; instead, it enticed the families to produce visual information about their daily lives. The photographs brought forth their árbediehtu broadly. It was not only the skilful duodji, shoes, Sámi dresses or sledges, and tools they had made themselves; it was mainly their way of acting in their environment, how they explored the weather, the seasons of the year, the wild animals, the moments of silence or hectic and harsh conditions. The creative work the families produced was in the action, exploring visually their lives. From here, developing their photographs further to an exhibition, the families relied on my professionalism as an artist and art educator.
The main interest of the participants was to inform about reindeer herding in a comprehensible way. Hiltunen (2009) stresses that the features of community-based art education derive from the community's position and needs. In addition, art actions are based on the community's interests and the individuals' relations to creative or artistic work (Hiltunen, 2009). Some participants are eager to try new things, while others follow the actions from a distance. The reindeer herder families had a mutual interest in spreading information about their daily lives. The idea of making an art exhibition was odd for some, but photographing was a familiar action that felt comfortable for all. The research action of Photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997) was a creative action that was not explicitly recognised as making art. In addition, the planning of the installations for the exhibition was based on familiar daily life items, which were not changed into "something else"—the way of working suited this community and its goals. More spectacular contemporary art would likely have made some participants retreat from the activity and the research.
Hiltunen (2009) pointed out that the collaborating, creative and often performative process of building a dialogical stage is community art (Hiltunen, 2009). The products of art-based actions, such as their installations in the Boazoeallin exhibition and book, are in addition to the art-based activity, the families' performances of community art. Conceptions of art are also a broad discussion among art experts and historians. Mainly, community art continuously raises new thoughts about its features and essence, how to perform the art, and how to understand and receive information through the art (Bishop, 2012; Kantonen, 2007).
Summary of fortunate encounters in this study
This study was an art-based collaboration with five Sámi reindeer herder families living in the Finnish part of Sápmi. The art educator–researcher, who also lives in the same region and shares the everyday life of a Sámi reindeer herder as a family member, conducted the research using community-based art education. The project had two aims. First, the project sought to enhance and inform through art-based methods about contemporary reindeer herders' daily lives in the changing multicultural North. Second, the art-based project examined the potential and frames for conducting art-based action research using community-based art education in the context of Sámi Indigenous culture.
The reindeer herder families examined their daily lives by photographing moments of their daily doings. The photographs constituted their "Boazoeallin" exhibition and book, informing the audience about reindeer herding and revealing rare moments of their everyday life to the audience. The art-based research action provided a means for the participants to convey their perspectives on their livelihood and daily life. At the same time, the performance brought forth árbediehtu, the Sámi Indigenous Knowledge, to be shared and interpreted by a broad audience.
The Sámi culture is significant in this study and sets Indigenous ethical frames and terms for the research action. Also, other art-based actions in the research needed ethical attention, such as permission to use photographs of the families' everyday lives for an audience and how to present the families' everyday topics in the exhibition and book. The participatory working methods and co-research approach helped to collaborate and expose the Sámi families' visual material. The families decided what photographs were used and designed the exhibition topics and the book themselves. The creative work and the art contributing to the 'new genre Arctic art' arose from the participants. The art educator's role was to facilitate, offer ideas, and help with practical arrangements rather than instruct art-based methods or determine materials or the shape of the artworks in the exhibition.
The art-based action resulting in the Boazoeallin exhibition and book contributes to the concept of 'new genre Arctic art', broadly defined as new forms of multicultural art and craft that present Indigenous and other cultures and their shared interests in the Arctic. 'New genre Arctic art is based on participatory engagement and uses community-based art education as a foundation for creative collaboration. Multicultural art-based collaboration can be developed to confront contemporary and future challenges for the inhabitants of the Arctic.
This study involved a multicultural set of people. The art educator-researcher lives in the community and can observe the daily life of a reindeer herder's family with autoethnographic methods. However, the researcher's background representing a Western culture, art conceptions and lifestyle affected the research planning with the reindeer herder families, who are born into and represent the lifestyle of Sámi reindeer herder families. Cultural awareness is a door-opening possibility for understanding and collaboration, but the diverse conceptions of time, place, past, future, art, and aesthetics can challenge actions. The art educator-researcher's Western views and conceptions of art and art-based actions almost endangered the spontaneous and responsive collaboration with the families. Propitiously, the art educator-researcher recognised the essential need for art-based action to be derived from the capacity and strengths of the participants. Their photographs displayed in installations depicting the reindeer herders' working environment was a good solution that suited the families best.
Cultural collaboration and community art need sensitivity and intensive attention to the participants. Co-research is not only a word describing collaboration. Careful consideration and open discussions with the research participants about leading roles in the research activity are crucial. Developing community-based art education actions, producing 'new genre Arctic art' and the art-based collaboration among the multicultural habitants in the North must acknowledge the coexistence of diverse art worlds. Merging cultures in community art is a responsibility that requires cultural sensitivity and consent to use knowledge, and the features of the art should be planned in collaboration. The art educator-researcher often presents the 'new genre of Arctic art events for the academic audience. The power relations in art-based action research, which is based on participation and co-research, is crucial to bring forth as part of the research agenda. Specifically, tailored community-based art education, which emphasises a situational and dialogical approach, goes along with the mentality of the Arctic communities. By respecting, knowing and understanding the community's circumstances and cultural characteristics, it is possible to achieve fruitful results for all parties.
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