Johan Turis "Min bok om samene" som eit autoetnografisk verk

Abstrakt

The article is a reading of Johan Turi’s 1911 book Muitalus sámiid birra, in Norwegian Min bok om samene, through Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of autoethnography as an ethnography from an insider perspective which expresses Sámi identity and enters a dialogue with the colonialist depiction of the Sámi people. Turi’s book is also a literary work depicting “zones of contact”, which is Pratt’s term for areas where cultures meet and interact, as opposed to the “frontier” term, which treats the meeting of cultures solely from the perspective of the colonizers expanding their domain. Turi seeks to inform readers about the conflicts between the Sámi and the colonizers. The book can also be read as a political statement that asserts the Sámi have a right to exist in their traditional lands and that their knowledge and culture have value.