Changes in Sami (Lapp) Conceptions of Male and Female as a Key to Cultural Transformations in Sami History

Résumé du livre

This paper explores the changing concepts of male and female and changes in the structural position of gender categories themselves in the three major periods of Sami history: a semi-nomadic "traditional" period, based on hunting and fishing; a "pastoral" period, involving extensive migrations with large herds of domesticated reindeer; and a "modern" period of considerable Sami involvement in a Western market economy. A focus on gender allows the development of a more comprehensive theory of Sami history as a series of cultural systems of very different kinds. Each system is characterized by its own primary relations and categories, organizing not only gender relations but also intimately related construction of the self and social whole, ecological patterns, mode of historical reproduction, and the overall relation of men and women to the symbolic order. Broader implications of this Sami analysis are also suggested for theoretical issues in the study of gender and culture and for practical assessments of the situations and needs of women and men in non-Western societies.