Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

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Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

“The struggles of the Vepsian Peoples to first be recognized [as an indigenous people, in 1999] is compounded by the administrative steps that have been taken in more recent times that effect much hardship, such as changes to social pension policies that removed Vepsian from pension rolls. Regional authorities have also taken steps to ‘optimize’ the network of educational and social institutions in the places of their traditional residence, which has been to the detriment of Vepsians who have seen valuable kindergartens and grade schools being closed down in villages where Vepsians are located; meaning long travel times to schools or entry into the boarding school system which has often been to their detriment.” Zinaida Strogalshchikova,Chair of the Society of Vepsian Culture, Republic of Karelia A recent study commissioned by the Finnish Prime Minister’s Office (Husbekk et al., 2015) reported that sustainable growth in the Fennoscandian Arctic would be achieved by the promotion of four drivers: liquefied natural gas and renewable energy sources (led by Norway), ‘greener’ mining solutions (led by Sweden), increased tourism (led by Finland), and cold-weather technologies. 7.2.1 Economic change and indigenous societies Traditional economies are central to the health and future survival of indigenous peoples’communities. It has been argued that indigenous economic systems should play a far stronger role in considerations of indigenous governance. “Indigenous economic systems need to play a more central role in envisioning and shapingmeaningful,comprehensive, and sustainable systems of contemporary indigenous self-governance. If indigenous economies are not taken into account, there is a serious danger of losing the very identities that constitute indigenous peoples. Indigenous economies such as household production and subsistence activities extend far beyond the economic sphere: they are at the heart of who people are culturally and socially.These economies, including the practices of sharing, manifest indigenous worldviews characterized by interdependence and reciprocity that extend to all living beings and to the land. In short, besides an economic occupation, subsistence activities are an expression of one’s identity, culture, and values.They are also a means by which social networks are maintained and reinforced.” Kuokkanen (2011) 7.2.1.1 Reindeer herding and the Sámi Siida For most of human history, the economic organization of mankind has been different from today’s capitalist principles. Karl Polanyi in his classic 1944 work The Great Transformation defined this economic system as the absence of the three ‘fictitious commodities’ that came to define capitalism: the private ownership of land, labor as a commodity, and money (Polanyi, 1963). Although well integrated into the market economy, the internal organization of Sámi reindeer herding still largely corresponds to Polanyi’s definition: the system is based on sequential usufruct of land , on shared (unpaid) labor within the siida ‘clan’, and on the internal exchange of products

as barter rather than on market transactions. The sequential usufruct of land can be compared to modern time-sharing, when ownership, for example of a holiday apartment is agreed for certain weeks of the year. Global development away from this system was slow. Farmers were also mostly largely self-sufficient until about a hundred years ago, and only in about the last 40 years has marketization come to threaten the traditionally organized societies of the Arctic. The huge technological advances of the 18th century Industrial Revolution, primarily in the textile industry created the breakthrough of a modern market society. 19th-century authors were perplexed by the ‘alienation’ of production from consumption. However, the mode of production of the Sámi reindeer herders stayed the same. For example, in Norway, their relationship to the market was, until the 1978 Reindeer Law, limited to the sale of their final product to traders. The dominant mode of production in the 20th century was what has come to be called ‘standardized mass production’ or ‘Fordism’. Huge cost reductions, and corresponding rising real wages, were achieved though standardized mass production where huge fixed costs could be amortized (made profitable) only by standardizing the final product.‘Modernization’tended to become identical to ‘standardized mass production’. “When we finally managed to gather all reindeer, and had delivered reindeer for slaughtering to a slaughterhouse, we got the message that the slaughterhouse was bankrupt. We did not get any income from the slaughtering. It was very tough to live a year without income. One simply had to borrow money to survive.” Piere Bergqvist, EALLIN (2015:39) When this so-called modernization hit Sámi reindeer herding in Norway with a new law in 1978, it was with the prevailing logic of Fordism built in. In Norway, reindeer herding governance was inspired just as much by the Soviet version of modernization – within a planned economy – as by Fordism of theWestern kind.As a production philosophy, however, these systems were virtually identical. Against local advice a huge reindeer slaughterhouse, with an annual capacity to slaughter most of Norway’s reindeer was built in Kautokeino. But this centralization led to a loss of core activities for the herders: not only in terms of slaughtering and the preparation of final meat products but also in the loss of by-products (from hides to intestines) because their conversion into clothing, shoes, and all kinds of utensils were also key carriers of the Sámi culture. Fordist modernization came to threaten the very core of Sámi culture. The governance of reindeer herding became the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture. However, both the decentralized mode of production and the cyclical nature of the reindeer herding – determined by natural climatic cycles – were completely alien to Norwegian agricultural practices. To this clash of cultures (between Fordist mass production and the traditional system which is the only one that enables survival in the harsh Arctic climate) an important problem of economic vested interest was added. Refusing to recognize the natural cyclicity of reindeer herding, the Ministry of Agriculture imposed the fixed ‘target price’ system from sedentary agriculture on the price of reindeer meat. When