Decolonising Medieval Fennoscandia : An Interdisciplinary Study of Norse-Saami Relations in the Medieval Period

The interdisciplinary study investigates the relationship between Norse and Saami peoples in the medieval period and focuses on the multifaceted portrayal of Saami peoples in medieval texts. The investigative analysis is anchored in postcolonial methodologies and argues for the inherent need to decolonise the medieval source-material as well as recent historiography. This is achieved by presenting the historiographic and political background of research into Norse-Saami relations, before introducing an overview of textual sources discussing Saami peoples from the classical period to the late 1400s, an analysis of the textual motifs associated with the Saami in medieval literature (their relevance and prevalence), geo-political affairs, trading relations, personal relations and Saami presence in the south. By using decolonising tools to read Norse-Saami relations in medieval texts, influenced by archaeological material and postcolonial frameworks, the study challenges lingering colonial assumptions about the role of the Saami in Norse society. The current research episteme is re-adjusted to offer alternative readings of Saami characters and emphasis is put on agency, fluidity and the dynamic realities of the Saami medieval pasts.

"Wang successfully demonstrates that medieval Fennoscandia was a culturally diverse region characterized by cultural discourse, exchange, and fluidity, and that the Indigenous Saami played an integral role in the sociocultural and political activities of this time. As such, Wang has provided a much-needed work on the cultural landscape of this region, one that not only challenges assumptions and scholarly norms about the past, but also illustrates the important role that scholars of seemingly distant pasts play in the experiences of modern cultural groups and the responsibility that falls to us to give them the fair, nuanced, and complex representation that is their right." Arwen Thyssen, in: Scandinavian-Canadian Studies / Études Scandinaves au Canada, Vol. 31 (2023) pp. 1-4.

"Insgesamt leistet die rezensierte Studie damit einen produktiven Beitrag zur Erforschung der mittelalterlichen Geschichte der Samen. [...] Einen besonderen Vorzug bildet zudem der Umstand, dass durch die gesamte Monographie hindurch bestehende Forschungspositionen nicht nur dekonstruiert, sondern auch forschungsgeschichtlich eingeordnet werden, sodass die Studie auch unter diesem Gesichtspunkt eine lohnenswerte Lektüre darstellt." Simon Hauke in: H-Soz-Kult, 11.09.2024, www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-134866 (12.09.2024).

"Nach dieser Arbeit ist eine Revision der allgemeinen Geschichtsschreibung Skandinaviens unumgänglich, so unbequem und so politisch inopportun es zur Zeit auch sein mag. Es ist nicht mehr möglich, diesen einmal gedachten Gedanken wieder rückgängig zu machen. Und das kann man als den größten Erfolg der Geschichtsschreibung und größtes Kompliment, das man einer Arbeit machen kann, auffassen." Carsten Jahnke, in: Das Historisch-Politische Buch, Vol. 71 (2023), pp. 407-408.