Contribution short abstract:

For the Sámi, humor and laughter are central means of communication. They actively participate to share the community's multiple narratives and the knowledge they carry. They can also be a creative way of responding to colonialist state ideologies and hegemonic categories that impact Sámi autonomy.

Contribution long abstract:

How does laughter and humor expressed in Sámi oral traditions enable the Sámi to know and reinterpret theirs relationships to the land and to its inhabitants, and engage with the contemporary world as Sámi? For many young Sámi, the practices of Sámi narratives and yoiks (Sámi way of singing) is a precious source of meaning and personality at a time when industrial pressure on the Arctic territory is increasing and climate change is darkening the horizon.

The Sámi are dealing with modernity in an creative and pragmatic way, in the spirit of Sámi traditions, in order to pursue and renew their territorialities, defend theirs cultural identities and decolonize social imaginaries. Laughter and humor play a significant role in such processes by stimulating social interactions in the community, carrying the collective memory and knowledge and expressing counter-narratives to colonialism and hegemonic categories impacting Sámi autonomy.

Based on a 14-month ethnographic research in Dálvvadis (Jokkmokk), a village located in the Swedish part of the Sábme, the Sámi homeland, I aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of humor and laughter in indigenous studies and in anthropology. Present in everyday life and in cultural performances of Sámi participants, humor and laughter carry social and political meanings and constitute creative means of communication that shape the Sámi's most current practical and cosmological fields.