Tourism and the Sámi in transition: a discourse analysis of Swedish newspapers, 1982–2015

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how tourism in Sápmi is positioned in the broader discourses that contribute to the construction of Sámi identities. This is done through examining how the tourism industry is represented in the ethno-political discourses in newspaper media. Employing a discourse analysis framework, we collected 165 articles from 29 major Swedish newspapers for the period 1982–2015. The results show that the ethno-political discourses construct, and are constructed by, the discursive practice of tourism in Sápmi, thus forming an ongoing dialectical process. This process entails three aspects. First, while some narratives in newspapers construct a social knowledge that portrays the Sámi people as “exotic others” in the global and domestic tourism industry, others show that tourism can also be an opportunity to challenge such a view. Second, these news narratives demonstrate how the ethno-political discourses are intertwined in the social relations between tourism and other natural-resource-based industries. Third, an ever-changing social identity construction shows that, with the changing role of reindeer herding in the Sámi identity, how tourism assists or challenges this association is becoming increasingly important.