Paper short abstract:

Common land in northern Norway has for a long time been contested between local Saami and the state in relation to usufruct and ownership rights. This paper discusses how the value and meaning of the landscape are transformed by the process of contest and reproduced locally in multiple appearances.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is empirically based on a long contested common land between local Saami users and the Norwegian state in relation to usufruct and ownership rights. I will discuss how certain acts on the landscape in a context of contest may transform the value and meaning of it. Theoretically I base the discussion on the view that landscapes are constituted as meaningful entities through time and place/space producing events. However, different experiences, interests or agendas make the same landscape evolve as parallell entities. Hence, landscape at a particular time/space intersection may be conceived as discontinous or multiple in its appearance. Such multiple appearances may be the result of contest. I will show how acts on the landscape that can be understood as appropriation by dwelling becomes acts of resistance and eventually transformed to a mind conscious political landscape, partly related to an international rights discourse. As such the landscape considered may be reprodused as locally contested multiple entities.