Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

This study contributes to the debate on the role of spatial contexts in rural entrepreneurship. Drawing on rural and indigenous entrepreneurship theory, we explore how four Sámi entrepreneurs from Sweden and Norway engage with their spatial contexts. We employ a multiple-case study design, an interpretive philosophy of science, and elements from indigenous research methodologies. Our findings demonstrate that the entrepreneurs engage both within and across their spatial contexts, encompassing environments both nearby and far away. We also identify drivers and practices associated with this entrepreneurial engagement. Based on the findings, we develop The Sámi Entrepreneurial Engagement Framework. The framework serves as an illustration of how a Sámi perspective adds new insight into the field of rural entrepreneurship and offers a comprehensive lens for understanding entrepreneurial engagement with spatial contexts in culturally rich and environmentally sensitive settings.

Panel: Indigenous perspectives on and expertise within climate change, justice, technology & sciences – 20 November 2025

Online and in-person parallel session at the Climate Existence Symposium 2025, Uppsala University

Place: Engelska parken, Uppsala University and online

Time: 16.00 -17.30

Session Summary

Presentations on research in progress within  Powering Change With Justice: Weaving Indigenous perspectives to uncover impacts of the wind energy transition, funded by FORMAS, led by Dr Vanessa Masterson, Stockholm Resilience Centre;  ⴰⵔⵔⴰⵎⴰⵜ Ărramăt: Strengthening Health And Wellbeing Through Indigenous-Led Conservation and Sustainable Relationships With Biodiversity,  based at University of Alberta, Edmonton,  and SING Sábme: Questioning “Green Energy” and its Impact on Indigenous Livelihoods in Sweden, all co-led by Dr May-Britt Öhman, Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism, CEMFOR, Uppsala University 

Moderator: May-Britt Öhman

Film: Ungreen wind energy: Perspectives on the Storlandet power proj, Gällivare Forest Sámi territory   7:33 min.  Öhman, May-Britt;  Andersson, Henrik.; Storlöpare, Petri.

( 2021)

In this documentary filmed in September 2020, Henrik Andersson, reindeer herder within Gällivare Forest Sámi village speaks about the environmental destruction caused by the Swedish state, through forestry practices by the state owned forest company Sveaskog, as well as the planned wind energy industrial area by the state power company Vattenfall. He also shows what a healthy forest should look like.  

The area discussed is one out of two large project areas for windpower within Gällivare Forest Sámi village –  “Storlandet”, which is the ancestral grounds of his family. Work is ongoing. In September 2025, 2025, Vattenfall submitted an application for an environmental permit to the Land and Environment Court at the Umeå District Court.

The Swedish state, the European Union (EU), as well as actors within the energy market, environmental organizations and climate activists all insist in the promotion of windpower as “green”, fossil free and thereby environmentally friendly. A major part of these constructions are planned for in Sámi territories, on land that were stolen  from Sámi during late 19th and early 20th century, the Sámi taxlands. 

Furthermore, the wind power industrial areas have major negative impacts for the local environment. Forests are clear cut and replaced with 100 – 300 meters high steel constructions, on massive foundations made of concrete. Construction and maintenance demands new mines, car and truck access roads and thereby new stone quarries causing major wounds in the landscape. These industrial areas have major negative consequences for the local environment, fresh water, nature, wild life, local inhabitants as well as reindeer herding. Pollution from the wind power constructions is still rarely addressed such as oil spills, release of microplastics and PFAS.

This documentary is part of a supradisciplinary research and documentary project on (un)sustainable power production, researching and documenting the subject matter from Sámi reindeer herding point of view, along with analyses of the whole windpower complex. 

The research was funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas, 2017-01923 and 2019-01975, both projects were part of the Swedish National Research Programme on Climate, and led by Dr May-Britt Öhman, Uppsala University. 

Inger-Helene Gråik

Experiences from two decades of struggles with wind power in Jijnjevaerie Sámi village, Jämtland County.

Read more: The Experience of a SÁMI Reindeer Community Affected by a Large Wind Power Project. / Marianne Gråik and Karin Buhmann.The Routledge Handbook on Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement. Routledge, 2024. p.193-198  Find at DOI 10.4324/9781003388227-16

Short presentations by master students within the projects, 5 minutes each:

Batzorig Tuvshinjargal

The Arramat Project Pathway T5 and the Indigenous-Led Place-Based Projects (ILPBPs)

The  ⴰⵔⵔⴰⵎⴰⵜ Ărramăt: Strengthening Health And Wellbeing Through Indigenous-Led Conservation and Sustainable Relationships With Biodiversity Project is funded by the Government of Canada with ca 184 MSEK during 2022-2028. 

Arramat supports more than 80 Indigenous-led Place-Based Projects (ILPBPs) in 38 countries and over 75 Indigenous territories, all aimed at exploring the vital interrelationships between Indigenous health, well-being, and biodiversity conservation. Within Arramat there are also 10 Global Transformation Pathways led by Indigenous scholars and Indigenous Knowledge holders, with the task to liaise the ILPBPs. Co-led by three prominent Indigenous scholars,  Pathway T5 is dedicated to Indigenizing/Decolonizing Science and Education.  

During fall of 2025 I assist the T5 with setting up webinars/vodcasts, and a literature review of Indigenous scholarship work with the theme of Decolonizing science and education.  I also work with an overview of the ILPBPs, investigating how they work with Decolonizing Science and Education. In this presentation I will present the findings so far, based on the successful  ILPBP grant proposals, and on existing reports.

 Giovanna Pereira Marques

Wind power developments and the impacts on Indigenous & Traditional Peoples in Brazil

This presentation reports on work-in-progress on the concerns and objections from indigenous and traditional people from north-east Brazil regarding industrial wind developments.  Brazil’s green transition is described as critical to mitigating the climate crisis. But windpower developments are often framed in technical and depoliticised language – which acts as a form of discursive exclusion – through expressions such as “clean energy” and “green energy” as a way to delegitimize conflicts and harm that these developments bring to marginalized populations. 

We report on a media and literature scan, synthesizing the key arguments and discourses of energy justice and green grabbing, and the unequal impacts of wind developments on human rights, health, and ways of life for Indigenous and traditional communities in Brazil. We highlight how wind energy developments exacerbate inequalities  for traditional communities such as quilombolas who have fewer and more insecure rights to territory.

 William Yau

Follow the Wind – Telecoupled Impacts of Wind Energy Developments in Northern Sweden

For a decade, wind energy has been promoted as an important driver of Sweden’s transition to renewable energy. However, such development in green energy transition has created severe negative ecological effects and deepened inequalities, in rural local communities and in Sámi reindeer herding territories.  

I will present the work I do with my master’s thesis, within which I will use a framework called telecoupling. Telecoupling focuses on how faraway places are connected and affect each other. I will look at wind energy development in Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Jämtland and Västernorrland, using telecoupling to examine how local development decisions are affected by investment, technology, and policies from other regions (including other parts of Sweden and other European countries).

I aim to lay out a more complete picture of who benefits from the wind energy development in northern Sweden, by gathering and analyzing data from online databases and wind project websites. I will also look at the costs of such developments, and how they may disproportionally affect local communities. I plan to analyze literature to study the costs to local communities, and to interview local actors to capture nuanced local impacts. The final goal of the study is to have a critical review of who benefits and who pays for the burden of transitioning towards a renewable energy model.

 Milena Weber

Sámi rights in European and Swedish (sustainable) energy policies – identifying gaps

Current wind energy developments risk undermining Sámi self-determination and land-use rights affirmed in Swedish legislation (SFS 1971:437; SFS 1974:152, 1-2 kap.) and international frameworks, such UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) and the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). 

Reindeer husbandry, which supports Sámi identity and sustainable use of old growth forest, faces profound threats from habitat fragmentation, cumulative disturbances and altered migration patterns associated with wind infrastructure. 

This presentation offers early insights from the project Powering Change with Justice. It examines how Swedish and EU-level policies governing wind expansion conceptualise Sámi rights and knowledge, asking: Do current policy frameworks meaningfully safeguard Indigenous land use and participation, or do they reproduce structural inequities? 

Preliminary findings suggest that policy discourses largely assume peaceful coexistence between wind development and Sámi land use, rather than assessing cumulative harm. The legal and planning landscapes remain fragmented, technocratic and often inattentive to Indigenous perspectives and lived experiences. 

Emerging patterns point toward a persistent green extractivist logic in energy governance, where climate action risks reproducing colonial dynamics unless Indigenous rights and participation are centralised. By foregrounding Sámi perspectives and exposing persistent policy blind spots, this work seeks to contribute to a more just and accountable energy transition in Sweden and the EU.

S. M. Nayeem Islam

What studies are there on PFAS and microplastic pollution and other pollution from wind power in the reindeer herding areas on the Swedish side of Sábme? 

I will present my work with identifying studies of pollution from wind power industries within the Sámi reindeer herding areas in Sweden. The primary  focus is on microplastics and PFAS. However, I will also take into account other types of pollution that show up in ongoing studies and in Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs)  preceding the construction of windpower plants. 

The empirical material is based on first of all email correspondences with all the County Administrative boards – Länsstyrelser – in the reindeer herding area (Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Västernorrland, Gävleborg and Dalarna), asking what kind of pollution they are studying, and if they do study  PFAS and microplastic pollution from wind power plants. 

Secondly, I look into the EIAs that are part of the permission process for these wind power plants. The EIAs are made by the wind power companies themselves. 

The objective of the study is to map the current knowledge and ongoing studies within the regional authorities – Länsstyrelserna – regarding pollution from wind power installations, while highlighting the environmental dangers with PFAS and microplastic. The ambition is also to visualize the pollution with Geographic Information System (GIS) tools, to enhance the understanding of the pollution from wind power in the nature and waters surrounding wind power plants. Furthermore the ambition is to advocate for more transparent, independent and science based environmental monitoring of wind power projects.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are increasingly promoted as responses to interconnected climate, biodiversity, and societal challenges. This report explores what NbS are, clarifies where conceptual confusion arises, and outlines their benefits and limitations, focusing on decision-making, knowledge and justice. The themes in the report were shaped at a workshop held in May 2025 with a newly established NbS network.  

The NbS network, supported by UUniCORN catalyst funding, is investigating how the use of NbS might help mitigate conflicts related to biodiversity protection and natural resource use. Its vision is to develop new research collaborations within UU that contribute to healthy, resilient, and biodiverse landscapes while also meeting diverse societal needs. Insights from network members are featured throughout the report. 

The Arramat Global Transformation Pathway 5 (T5)  Decolonizing Science and Education aims to build a network and create a space toaddress the challenges and opportunities for Indigenous-led science,technology, and society research and education.

Within this framework, we aim to organize a series of webinars that willbe recorded and published as vodcasts - to highlight projects and workthat are actively promoting the decolonization of science and education. 

We welcome you to join our very first webinar on December 15,2025, 6-7.30 PM Central European Time. Click here for Calendarinvite to get your time.  

Content:  We begin with an introduction of the T5, followed by apresentation about the Summer internship for INdigenous peoples inGenomics (SING) program which first started in 2011. We then present the one-week SING Sábme workshop held in August 2025, with the help of a short film. The scientists and Sámi hosts will then present their reflections and insights. Thereafter we will open the floor for an opportunity to ask questions, discuss, exchange perspectives and ideas. 

Translation: French and Spanish is organised.  For translation into otherlanguages within Arramat, please reach out to organizers latest byDecember 7 at email: arramatpathwayt5@gmail.com 

Invitation: The webinar/ vodcast is open to all Arramat members andalso open to all others interested in the themes discussed. 

Arramat members who wish to join the webinar as panelists pleaseemail us latest by December 14 at arramatpathwayt5@gmail.com.

Program

Opening and Introductions

A Decade-Plus of DecolonizingScience - SING- Summer Internshipfor INdigenous people in Genomics, Kim TallBear

Introduction to SING Sábme, May-Britt Öhman

Film SING Sábme

The SING experience: Reflections and insights by scientists and Sámi hosts

 Q and A

Panelists

May-Britt Öhman, Associate professor in Environmental History,Researcher, Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism,  CEMFOR,  Uppsala University, T5 Co-lead, Cofounder of SING Sábme (Lule and Forest Sámi)

Kim TallBear, Professor, American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota,T5 Co-lead, Co-founder of SING USA, Canada and Sábme (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate)

Elizabeth Nelson, Assistant professor, Metagenomics Laboratory for ancient and modern DNA,Southern Methodist University, Co-founder of SING Sábme (Turtle Mountain Band ofChippewa)

Warren Cardinal McTeague,  Assistant professor,  Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Governance & Environmental Relations, Dept of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia, T5 Co-lead, Co-founder of SING Sábme (Métis and Cree of Lac La Biche and Fort McMurray ) 

Tina Eriksson. Reindeer herder in Gällivare Forest Sámi community, Flakaberg group,and a tradition bearer of reindeer herding knowledge. Co-founder of SING Sábme

Michael Guttorm,Eriksson Årsjok, Reindeer herder in the Gällivare Forest Sámi community, Flakaberg group, a tradition bearer of reindeer herding knowledge. Co-founder of SING Sábme

Henrik Andersson, Reindeer herder of the Gällivare Forest Sámi village, Flakaberg group. Activist and defender of Sámi rights. Local guide who shares his cultural knowledge with visitors and students. Co-founder of SING Sábme. 

Hampus Andersson, Young reindeer herder of the Gällivare Forest Sámi village,Flakaberg group. He is one of the youngest herders working to carry on his family tradition. Co-founder of SING Sábme.

Elle Eriksson, Member of the Gällivare forest Sámi community, Flakaberg group and Ph.D. student in Forest Science.  Co-founder of SING Sábme

Batzorig Tuvshinjargal, MA student at the Sustainable Development programme, Uppsala University, and intern with CEMFOR and the Arramat T5 pathway assisted in setting up the webinar and moderated.

Jacob Smallboy, MA student at UBC Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship,  assisted the webinar. 

This study aims to strengthen the visibility of Sámi expertise, knowledge, and the biocultural diversity of Sámi territories by exploring the impact of colonial perception on Sámi territories Maps have played a central role in reinforcing colonial perceptions. In Sámi communities in Sweden, traditional mapping has reduced their complex landscapes to mere grazing areas, neglecting essential cultural practices. This perspective has guided land use planning, facilitated extractive ventures such as large-scale mining while displacing Sámi and severely disadvantaging Sámi livelihoods. This chapter presents a case study on the Swedish side of Sábme with a feminist and supradisciplinary approach that incorporates Sámi Indigenous Methodologies in co-production with a Lule Sámi family (a “sijdda”). We argue that environmental and land-use policies must address the complexity of the Sámi landscape by acknowledging the linguistic, biological, and cultural diversity to work towards sustainability. Additionally, our work provides an example of how to work ethically with and for Indigenous communities and how to make Sámi expertise, knowledge, and biocultural diversity visible. 

This chapter is an email conversation on Sweden’s own colonialism—inside the country as well as overseas—and its historic role and continuing relevance to Sweden. Among the topics that are discussed are the significance of Swedish colonialism within a broader context of European colonialism; how the history, legacies and continuing practices of Swedish colonialism often fail to be recognized in Swedish political and public life; Sweden’s continuing colonization of the Sámi and Sápmi; decolonial Indigenous and Black consciousness among the Sámi and people of African descent in Sweden, the struggles of Sámi and people of African descent in Sweden to correct the public and political lack of recognition of Swedish colonialism and how these struggles are connected to other decolonial and human rights struggles across the world.

This chapter explores the management of the Covid-19 pandemic and it effects focusing on Norrbotten County, the largest county in Sweden, which occupies a quarter of the country, with 98,245 square kilometers and a population of 250,000.

Norrbotten has two international borders, Finland and Norway, crossing Indigenous Sámi territories and reindeer grazing and herding lands. The effects are linked to geography, cold climate, natural resource exploitation, industries, multicultural population, and sparsely populated areas with long journey times to access healthcare.

The county has a large Sami population and the largest number of reindeer and reindeer herders on the Swedish side of Sábme.

The research project “Pandemic in the (sub) Arctic North: A supra and cross-disciplinary data collection on experiences, resilience and social mobilization during the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on Norrbotten county,” was initiated in March 2020 and ended by April 2022. The project was led by the author of this chapter, Dr. May-Britt Öhman, Associate Professor of Environmental History, Lule and Forest Sámi of the Lule River valley. Within the project, an important part was the participants’ own documentation of their everyday life, including reflections on the events and developments during the crisis management period. One of the project participants was Henrik Andersson, a reindeer herder in the Gällivare Forest Sámi community, Flakaberg group, and also a coauthor of this chapter. Gällivare Forest Sámi village is one of fifty-one reindeer herding Sámi villages on the Swedish side of Sábme. The reindeers’ land stretches from the inland around Gällivare city and out into the archipelago of Luleå city.

In wintertime the reindeer are in the area of the archipelago in the Gulf of Bothnia, and during the summer they move to the grazing lands in the inland.Andersson started documenting his everyday life in March 2020, when he first heard of the pandemic. He uses a first-person perspective bringing together situated knowledge and ego-histoire.

The diary contains written entries and photographs and thereby documents the experiences from Sámi reindeer herding throughout almost two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this chapter, May-Britt Öhman has made a selection of entries, starting from day one, covering from the first day when Henrik Andersson heard about Covid-19 in March 2020 to the end of August 2020. The entries thus follow half of the reindeer herding year, including winter season when the grazing is often hard to find, spring migration from the coastal areas toward the inland, the calving season and the calf marking season, and the short time of rest that follows in August before the herders’ work begins again.

In this article, we have only entered the first few months of Henrik Andersson’s corona diary, showing the initial thoughts, responses, and difficulties that emerged. As most are aware, the situation continued for very long. When this article was being finalized, in early 2023, the Covid-19 situation was far better, but still not completely over. 

There has been very little study on the situation of the reindeer herders during the Covid-19 pandemic, at least not on the Swedish side of Sábme. Our research project, which was mainly data collection, has contributed to highlight a few of the issues at stake and will hopefully result in more research and writing on this subject.

Uppsam, Uppsalanätverket för samiskrelaterad forskning arrangerar i samarbete med Centre for Integrated Research on Culture and Society ett höstsymposium som samlar forskare från Uppsala, Stockholm och civilsamhället för att presentera och diskutera pågående forskningsprojekt. 

May-Britt Öhman frågar i sitt kapitel: Hur hänger ett foto av en lule­ och skogssamisk kvinna taget 1868 ihop med ett samtal mellan mor och dotter i ett kök över hundra år senare? Hur hänger allt detta ihop med svensk rasistisk bosättarkolonialism, markstölder från urfolket samer, samt samiskt motstånd under över ett sekel?

Öhman utgår från en bild på sin morfars farmors syster, skogs­ och lulesamiska kvinnan Brita Stina Larsdotter Rim från 1868, publicerad 2008, samt från ett lågmält men avgörande kökssamtal på svenska med sin mamma, ett drygt decennium tidigare.

Brita Stinas ansikte återfinns, än i dag, via Nordiska museet tillgängliggjort online, utan restriktioner, utan etiska förbehåll, och utan att Brita Stinas livshistoria, samt vad den svenska kolonialstaten gjorde mot henne och hennes familj, finns återgivet.

Författaren diskuterar hur dagens ”gröna omställning”, på av svenska staten stulna samiska marker, hänger ihop med hennes familjs osynliggjorda samiska histo­ria. Detta utgör ett återtagande och synliggör vad svenska staten gjort: något som rimligtvis borde undervisas om och ligga som grund för alla debatter om de miljöförstörande gruvexploateringarna, vindkraften, vat­tenkraften, skogsbruket. Rustade med kunskapen kan samer själva bättre utmana dagens ogröna och fortsatt rasistiska kolonialism, och förhopp­ningsvis kan allierade bättre förstå vad som hänt och se paralleller till annan rasism och anknyta till detta i all antirasistisk aktion.