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Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. Today I’m speaking with Josefina Skerk

Josefina Skerk Instead of putting things in books, we put them into the land. So the land is our library.

Ayana Young Josefina Skerk is a Sami politician with a background in law. She is the General Manager of Sijti Jarnge , a Sami Language and Culture Centre in Norway. Skerk has been a member of the Sami Parliament in Sweden since 2013, and has held office as its former Vice President. Indigenous rights, especially connecting to land and language rights, are key issues that she is passionate about. Her work involves highlighting the diversity of the Sami People and striving for Human and Indigenous Rights for all Sami, regardless of gender, sexuality, disability, or cultural background.

Well, Josefina, this is so amazing to connect with you because it has been years in the making. I remember meeting you at COP21 in Paris, which feels like a lifetime ago when I was with IEN and Jade Begay. So this is just such an incredible moment to be connecting with you in this way. So many years later.

Josefina Skerk Thank you. Yeah, it's really, really nice to at least hear you again.

Ayana Young Yes, I'm very excited. And I'd like to ask you about your ancestral homelands of Sápmi. I’m wondering if you can situate us in the sights, smells, and sounds of this vast traditional territory?

Josefina Skerk Absolutely. Our traditional territory is located in what's now the northern part of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. So a large part of it is in the Arctic. It's kind of harsh climates with long winters, and this beautiful midnight sun during the days. Our smells would be clean water, rushing down the mountain slopes, the forests, cloudberries, reindeer, moose, fish and birds. And all of these kinds of sounds, at least in the unexploited parts, because we're really threatened by industries and just land grabbing and going on. 

My favorite time of the year is in the fall when it's moose hunting season. And it's not because I'm particularly bloodthirsty, I’m actually a bad hunter, but what I love about it is that I get to follow my elders around in a way that doesn't really happen any other time of the year. I come from a background of Sámis that have been hunting and fishing, and our culture is tied to those traditions. When I go across the land with my elders, they whisper stories to me that they are reminded of when they cross a certain creek or when we move through our valley and we see that rock and I've come to realize that every tiny little place, rocks and creeks, and valleys, and lakes, and shorelines, and trees even have stories connected to them. They've got names, and the stories can be about different aspects. They can be about spirituality, my elders teach me how they think and a lot of the stories are connected to previous generations. 

I know how to imitate people that have been dead a long time before I was born, just because when we move across that place, the elders tell me that story with a tradition of storytelling themselves into that person, so the Sámi language hasn't been a written language for very long. Instead of putting things in books, we put them into the land. So the land is our library. So when people come and say well, we want to put a mine here, but we will compensate you with money. How do you ever compensate that with money? It's impossible. To even grasp that that could be a question. I want to be 90 years old, and tell my kids and grandkids and their kids those stories. That's my dream for my future. And the Sámi territory might be lost, but for individuals, our lands are not that big. They are our libraries, they are our entire history.

Ayana Young Well, thank you for situating and grounding us in your homelands. And I wonder if you can explain a bit more about the nuanced history of the Sámi as Indigenous peoples, and their relationship to Scandinavians more broadly. Because many of our listeners will have a very North American-centric understanding of colonization and Indigeneity, I wonder if you can begin with a bit of an introduction as to who the Sámi are and how your territories have been impacted by European nation-states and kingdoms vying for power throughout the ages?

Josefina Skerk We share a lot of history with other Indigenous peoples and that's what I find so powerful when we meet in various situations. We've lived in our territory for such a long time and then the states were formed, or at least the kings. All of that happened in the south and they started to look up north into our territories, claiming them, forcibly relocating us even further north, up in our territories, and they sent the church as they often do, and forced Christianization on us. The traditional Sámi religion is feministic, a form of it. So we went through a lot of similarities with other Indigenous peoples in that forced Christianization, they put our children in boarding schools, where they were not allowed to speak their language or practice their cultures. Some children were forced into a certain kind of schooling for the reindeer herding families, where the children were, on the opposite end, forced to continue some of the traditional practices but in the shape that was approved by the state, and they weren't allowed to speak their language either. So it was a lot of control, a lot of racism, forced sterilization, just all kinds of abuse, and then land grabbing, they stole all of our lands. So just it’s terrible history, and Sweden and other countries are still not living up to even the basic Indigenous rights that we have. They have agreed to it on the human level and still they're ignoring it back home. And they're constantly getting criticized by various UN organizations, and such and other nations. It's so important to speak to people with a voice like yours and to raise awareness of our situation.

Ayana Young Yeah, and I've heard that the Sámi are often referred to as “Europe’s only Indigenous peoples”, and I can’t help but also think about the ways in which many Europeans have severed themselves from Indigenous histories both willfully and forcibly. You speak about the history of eradication and forgottenness of Sámi and how these are not mutually exclusive. Can you share with us what the ramifications are of erasing Sámi histories from European and euro-descendant minds when it comes to connecting with place and ancestors? 

Josefina Skerk I think that what Europe's done is to create this new idea about themselves, the golden states of human rights, totally forgetting what they've done all around the world and in their own territories. And I do think that the majority of people wouldn't stand behind the things that are happening today, but they're not aware of what's going on. So the only ones that are lobbying politics today are industries, the powerful, multinational industries. And it's just repeating itself over and over since the children are not educated in school about what's going on, and not another way of life, either. They’re just always fed this idea of what success is, what high status is, and how we should live our lives constantly striving for a larger car, a bigger house, higher salary, instead of wealth in other ways, connection, roots, community, and the relationship that we could have, and the relationship the Sámi, a lot of us still have to nature, seeing ourselves as a part of it, instead of something that is looking down on it, that we're giving and taking, that we're interconnected and caring for each other in a way that I think people long for - to have that relationship with nature. And of course, some do, it's not something that only Indigenous peoples have, but it's something that we are great at as a people and sustainable values. We could create a better world for everyone if we listen more to Indigenous peoples.

Ayana Young Absolutely. And yeah, as a follow up to my last question, and a precursor to our conversation on extractive industry and reconciliation. I'm wondering how Sámi Indigeneity is understood traditionally, and how has it been defined by the Swedish State? 

Josefina Skerk Traditionally, our own way of defining ourselves is through kinship. To be related to someone else who's recognized as a part of our people and that is also the common way that Indigenous people recognize each other. As Indigenous peoples, the concept is often misunderstood sadly, it's not about who was the very first - it's about we're living on the land when it was colonized by a state. We were living in the north of Sweden and Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula when the states were formed, when the states took our lands, that is what the UN definition of Indigenous peoples are, and that is also why Indigenous people have certain rights. They are there to ensure that we are not discriminated against and that the history of denying and trying to eradicate our cultures won't continue. 

That is also why it's so detrimental when the states do not even fulfill those very low standards of what they have to do to ensure that we have the possibility to lead our own development to continue our culture's and pass them on to our kids and coming generations. And your other part of the question was, how did the state define us? Well, at least, I'm from the Swedish side of Sápmi, and here, the state has, for such a long time defined us as reindeer herding people, and all other Sámi backgrounds, those were living off handicrafts, or hunting, fishing, small scale farming, all of them were just never recognized and the state just wanted to assimilate everyone from those backgrounds, and strictly control reindeer herders, and kind of shape them into what they understood as a proper Sámi. And that idea of what a proper Sámi is, is still continued today. The only legislation that we have in Sweden today for our rights is entirely dependent on that you are reindeer herding, not everyone, or very, very few of us have the possibility to to pick that up. And there's also very strict laws surrounding who could do that. So what we want, all of us, is just to have the basic rights recognized. If you're a Sámi from a fishing background, you'd like to be able to continue to fish and teach your children about those traditions and those lands. Just those very basic concepts of being able to pass your traditions on to the next generation, and to live in them today.

Ayana Young Yeah, I'm wondering what are the implications of the state's definition in terms of land development?

Josefina Skerk The problem is that we are not recognized as rights holders, or not very strong rights holders. So the states view themselves as allowed to do more or less whatever they want on the grounds, and the majority of the Sámi people are not in any way recognized as being able to, for instance, in court argue their case on why something should not be done. So if there were a company wanting to place a big mine in my traditional territory, there is probably nothing I could do about it, except maybe activism, of political work, but I could never take it to court, because I'm not recognized as a rights holder. Even though my family, we've lived there for hundreds, if not 1000s of years before the Swedish state was formed, it used to be our lands, they have no papers or deeds to it. It's so frustrating and heartbreaking. 

One example of what the state is doing today is, for instance, in Sweden, they're trying to make themselves out as this amazing state when it comes to climate change. They're doing this green energy shift, but what they're actually doing is building huge windmill industry parks in our traditional territories, they're blasting mountains and just creating these large industrials places and cutting down huge, beautiful forests and placing these super large windmill parks, thousands of those mills in our lands and in some ways, finalizing the eradication of us through this green energy shift. They’re not building a future together with us, they’re erasing us. 

Ayana Young Josefina it's really disheartening to hear this, but yeah, I'm also glad that you're sharing what's happening there. And I see these troubles with green energy happening all over the world, especially to Indigenous communities and how impacted they are with these green or renewable energy projects and there are so many sacrifice zones that are not being highlighted enough. And I'm really, I'm glad that you brought that up. And yeah, we're hearing more and more stories of how also changing winter landscapes are making lifeways nonviable...And across Sápmi, snow is falling before the ice can set, making reindeer husbandry increasingly difficult. What exactly is transpiring during these winter months, and how does it fit within this larger story of changing landscapes and the impact that has on traditional livelihoods? 

Josefina Skerk We saw climate change coming many years ago, just as you say, especially in the winter, the rivers used to be our highways where you would move easily during the winter time. And you'd know because it was traditionally told from generation to generation, all of this knowledge passed down on where it was safe to move, how you should think, what you should do, to keep yourself safe, to keep the reindeer safe, and it's getting less and less relevant because the climate is becoming more and more unpredictable. So like many Indigenous peoples, we’re the first to be impacted by climate change, and also the ones that are, as you said, suffering from climate mitigation efforts.

Ayana Young Yeah, no, it's really important to hear. And, yeah, I'm just thinking about the reindeers and the windmills and the ice and the changing climate. There's a lot that's impacting your homelands that it just feels so important for us to hear this information, and I appreciate it. Countries like Norway and Sweden have begun to look at reconciliation, primarily by setting up commissions to begin addressing the reality that Nordic countries have used the Sámi to test scientific theories, have forcibly sterilized hundreds of Sámi women, refused to teach the language, and as I understand it, continue to negate Indigenous history in schools across Scandinavia. However, I think most of us can acknowledge that time and time again, commissions show up empty-handed, so I’d like to ask you, what does proper reconciliation look like for a colonial project that has not only extracted people from the land in the pursuit of material wealth, but specifically how does climate change and the reality that traditional homelands are changing need to be factored into these conversations as well?

Josefina Skerk There is such a large need, a huge need for more knowledge about what the states have done to us and for people to be able to tell their stories, and for it to be written down so that no one can deny what happened. And especially for the older generation, the ones who I would say, as a generation suffered most, before they pass away and lose the possibility of some kind of proper apology or something, it would never be enough, but just to see that it's recognized, but reconciliation can never be anything without actual action. We need to have our rights recognized. The states need to stand up for what they've done, and to stop repeating what they’re still doing. 

But as you say, we've seen again and again that they are not strong enough. And I think it's so important that we focus on the mandate of the Truth Commission that we truly try to use the knowledge that has been built up of what has worked and what has not worked and build relationships with other peoples that have had truth commission's or they're working on them. So concretely, reconciliation here, I'd say would be to recognize Sámi ownership rights, or at the very least rights to use our traditional land and continue our traditional practices, and also to establish in other places or as a whole, a practice of viewing land and using the land, living with the land, that is sustainable and that is rooted in respect and rooted in recognizing that generations to come will also live here. It's not about what looks good at the next election. It's about what looks good several generations ahead.

Ayana Young Yeah I’m just sitting with that, thank you. And I understand that one of the greatest threats to Sámi lifeways is mining, especially with Sweden emerging as a potential mining center for all of Europe. When we think about iron, copper, or gold mining - we don’t immediately think of Sweden, but in the past few years, Sweden has granted roughly 500 mining exploration permits...What is the current status of mining in Sápmi? And what resources is Sweden looking to extract and for what purpose? 

Josefina Skerk As you say, Sweden is really trying to take the role of Europe's number one mining country, and they're already producing or taking out 98% of Europe's total iron ore production and it's mined in our traditional territory, Sápmi traditional territories, and nothing of that is going back to Sámi people. So it's a lot of iron and copper and all kinds of minerals, gold. I mean, if they're trying to argue that they're mining for things that people need, sometimes they say, “Well, everyone around the globe deserves to have a refrigerator. So we need to mine for minerals so we can build that.” Well, there's zero need for gold, we have more than enough already on the land, but they're still pushing for that. And it's so easy to see that it's awful profits, short-sighted profits. There's a lot of speculation going around with the mines. These projects will never be viable, but someone who's really good at arguing might be able to push it on poor municipalities because municipalities in the Sámi territory are also very poor. Even though there are so many mines, there are so many forest industries, hydropower, windmill parks, but the money is going south, it's going into the state and the state is very bad at giving back or it's going into multinational companies. So there's a lot of speculation, as I said, with the mining, that it's just there. So there's been a lot of bankruptcies that have left our territory with poisoned places that the state has to clean up for hundreds of millions and they are really slow at doing that as well. But what we're seeing is that we're being able to join hands with environmental organizations and activists from all over the world, and forming these strong alliances together also with majority Swedish populations that are living in these territories, so we're building a stronger and stronger resistance. I truly think that we're moving towards a better future. But we need everyone in this struggle.

Ayana Young Absolutely. Yeah and hearing about the impacts of mining across Sápmi is yet another reminder that “Big Green”, when rolled out, comes at the expense of Indigenous sovereignty. And in some ways I see it as another manifestation of the belief that we can transcend the world through colonial endeavors like religion, capital, and now, techno-fixes...so many think that we can absolve ourselves from current global afflictions through green technology, but electric cars and hydropower are not even closely synonymous with true sustainable living, these too are colonial interests. So, I’d like to pose the question to you, what does sustainable living look like at this point in time?

Josefina Skerk Very good question because I can see in my own life, that I'm also overusing the world's resources. It's really difficult for us, I think, in the western part of the world to recognize what we need to do. But on the small scale, what I would want to share with everyone is listening, is, for instance, something that I think is beautiful within the Sámi culture is it is a high-status thing is to be able to create your own traditional outfit. If you can do that, if you're skilled enough, then you're really really highly regarded. While I think that in the majority society, to make your own clothes, is looked down on. It's something that poor people do. I wonder what would become of the majority if you’d revalue that - to reuse, to truly value what is handed to you from an older generation, and to create yourself instead of relying on sweatshops in other parts of the world, instead of building your life around others suffering and exploitation of nature. 

So what I think we need to do, myself included, is to truly look at our lives from the perspective of what do I really need and what am I being fed, being told that I need, and what I think I need - what is sustainable? Of course a roof over our heads. We need to be able to provide for ourselves in some way, but I think community could replace so much of the consumption that we are just, I think comfort eating ourselves through life with. And I also think there is so much joy to be found in creating yourself to do the small scale things, to growing your own food, to sharing with others, I think people will continue to view this as some kind of, again, looked down upon hippie thing, until more of us try it and realize the joy that it brings.

Ayana Young I absolutely agree with you. Yeah, even this spring, I was in the garden, and I was weeding and I just thought, I didn't think too much about it. I just thought, like, I don't even know if I was excited about it at the beginning, maybe I thought of it as more of a chore and then just the simple act of weeding around the strawberries in the garden. It gave me such a sense of relief and purpose and groundedness and calmness. And you know, this is just a very small example, but I noticed that things that maybe I would have written off before as unimportant or, you know, use the word hippie or you know, things like that are kind of looked down upon or looked at as kind of not necessary, or frivolous or, yeah, just not that deep, I guess. What I'm noticing is the simple acts are so deep and so meaningful, and so full of purpose. And also, for me personally slows me down in a way that helps me be in right relationship with the Earth. I really hear that and appreciate you saying that. And yeah, I'm thinking about this next question in context to our previous conversation, on the centrality of reindeer and winter and in preparing for this interview, I read that the Sámi language is so advanced when it comes to describing ancestral homelands and kin, that it is one of the most “studied” languages in the world today. As a fervent protector of language, can you speak to your work to protect the Sámi language and its role in world-making, not just in terms of it being studied, but in its living presence, as a language spoken amongst each other, in servitude of more than human kin and the land? 

Josefina Skerk Sámi language is so diverse, it truly reflects our culture, it is the world view that is being transmitted that you get through the language. So for instance, how you say “I”, “you”, and “we” as a whole group or maybe just two, and “them” but in the Sámi language you’d also have a possibility to use a certain word that is for us too, to describe the closeness of it's just me and you and we're doing something together. And also in many other ways, for instance, in the south Sámi language, we recently published an article that it is actually the language with the most words for snow in the world, and that hasn't developed by accident. It's because we've lived and had to survive in this very harsh environment doing very specialized, yet adaptable, practices, livelihoods that were dependent on natural resources, or is it, it’s still living, such as snow. 

So today there is an economic argument to languages, the Sámi languages, there's such a huge need to recruit people that speak Sámi in all kinds of parts of society today, at universities, in media, in municipalities, hospitals, in schools. So there's nothing that a kid can study in school and be more certain that they'll get a job, than Sámi. Sadly, it's still viewed as something that is useless by the majority of society that why would they ever need to study Sámi, study English instead, study Swedish, study Chinese, and they can't see that well, that's great to do that, but it's really good to study Sámi for the future. 

So what I tried to do is to explain that, to push for stronger laws, so that kids and adults and elders will have their rights truly recognized, and then, and not only rights but what we really need to revitalize the language, to keep it alive, to develop it, and also ensure proper funding because the state has for several hundreds of years tried to eradicate our language, they have not succeeded. So for us to truly ensure that it has the possibility to survive into the future, there's a lot of funding needed. We need for example, to be able to give scholarships for people to study to become teachers or work in kindergartens. And I also think they would be something that the state should generally do, because we should not ourselves have to pay to reclaim something that the state has stolen from us. 

My grandmother's generation was beaten in school, if they spoke Sámi, it wasn't viewed as something shameful, it was dangerous to be Sámi. So people tried to protect their children by not speaking the language, and in many cases, not even telling their kids that they are Sámi. It might be something that they would understand once their parents got old, and they could only use their mother tongue, Sámi, because they got dementia. We've had several cases of that, that is the moment when kids realize we're Sámi, because that isn’t gibberish my mother is speaking, it's actually another language. 

So to keep our language alive, there's a lot of things that need to be done, but on a positive note, there's so many that really want to use their language, they want to develop their language, and so many want to reclaim it. Kids are really striving for it and parents are doing whatever they can to ensure that their children and themselves can reclaim the language and elders that are starting to become proud of the fact that they speak it, it's a beautiful development within the Sámi people. 

Ayana Young This reminds me of when I saw you speak for the first time and I think you said something like, we're not strawberry jam, we don't want to be preserved. And it just reminds me of the difference between something living and moving and something that isn't controlled by another group of people like the language, but it's actually being lived and breathed life into and that's so beautiful. I'm really happy you spoke to that.

Josefina Skerk Thank you. I got a question from a BBC journalist if I weren't just working to try to preserve something that belongs in a museum, and I think if you ask that question you’ve truly missed the entire point and you really aren’t aware of what is going on with Indigenous cultures today, because just as you said, we’re living, we’re developing. It's so much. I mean, we talk a lot about the struggles, the pain. But it's also so much joy. We're moving from, many of us, not everyone sadly, we're being able to move away from the most dangerous parts of being Indigenous and the kids are growing up today. Wow. I mean, there’s an elder where I work now, and she is so impressed by the youth because she herself was raised to be silent. She was raised to not defend herself. So when she sees the kids that are just protesting or claiming their rights, she’s so proud of them and impressed. I mean, what we want is to lead our own development - nothing more than that. We are not looking or asking anyone to force upon us their view of what should be, which is usually something that is maybe what we were many, many years ago. And we still carry a lot of it with us today, but other things have changed. For instance, reindeer herders now, some of them use drones to gather their reindeer instead of skiing and that does not make reindeer herding any less valuable or culturally important. It's just developed.

Ayana Young Josefina, this has been such an informative conversation and I'm really grateful for all the places we've been in I kind of thinking about circling back to the first question, or somewhere near there. And I remember when I first saw you speak, and I was at COP21 and I remember, this is not going to be worded super well, but I remember folks being like, “Oh, wow, there's white Indigenous people” and it was kind of a surprise for many of us that were coming from Turtle Island or North America, and, yeah, I don't have a really well thought out question around this, but I am sitting with this as more and more people are either coming to support Indigenous sovereignty or European folks who have been displaced for a number of reasons and are trying to connect back to their ancestry and then seeing folks like you who are, you know, have white skin and are still Indigenous and I think that that kind of, at least for some folks over where I am at, it's kind of a surprise, and it's like it almost like, yeah, I think questions, maybe beliefs that folks have had. And I wonder if there have been any experiences you've had with this, or thoughts you have around being light-skinned and Indigenous.

Josefina Skerk When it comes to appearance and being Indigenous, how we view it within Sámi people is that our recognition of who Sámi is if you’re related or a part of a family that is recognized as Sámi. If you're a relative, love is free. So when it comes to the Sámi people, we have Sámis who are white, Sámi who are Black, Sámi from all kinds of backgrounds in that maybe their parents have found partners from other people's or they might be adopted, but they’re still recognized as fully Sámi. We try to move away from I think the very problematic discussion of being fully Indigenous or part. We don't say, half-Sámi, for instance, if you have a Swedish father, and a Sámi mom, as I do, I would say that I'm both Swedish and Sámi. 

If you look at the Sámi people, I mean, many of us are light-skinned, the majority I'd say, but it's, again, us being Indigenous is based upon that we have a distinct culture, we have a different language, different organization of society, different traditional livelihoods, different cultural expressions then the majority Swedish people, for instance, or Norwegian, or Finnish, or Russian. And we still carry that difference with us today. We are the first, or we were on the land, maybe I should correctly say when it was colonized and we've kept our traditions that is what makes us Indigenous, not the color of our skin.

Ayana Young Well, I really appreciate you speaking to that because I think that this topic is up for a number of people right now trying to find clarity with this, and yeah this has been such an important conversation for me personally, and I know our listeners will feel really yeah, mind expanded from this conversation. So thank you for all of the work you've been doing for so many years and standing for this land and for communicating these topics with so many people around the world, I appreciate your time today and all of the time that you've spent working for the Earth.

Josefina Skerk Absolutely. It's so important to raise awareness within the international community about this. We need support from all over and I also want to give support to other people. Let's never forget Berta Cáceres and all of the amazing Indigenous leaders all around the world that have given their lives to protecting their lands. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I'd like to say thank you back to you for all that you are doing. I'm so honored to be on your podcast and it's been such a nice conversation.

Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by Andy Tallent, Dana Anastasia, and West of Roan. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Julia Jackson.