By Eleni Kavvatha, Sara Fusco, Léopold Beyaert, Samaneh Koohestani-Soorchani, Oula-Antti Labba, Daria Mishina, Amandine Orsini, and François Thoreau
This is part of a special issue sponsored by the World Society Foundation: A Role for Europe in the Global Arena.
This article examines Sápmi, the traditional homeland of the Sámi Indigenous people across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula, as a site where European green transition and security priorities converge and considers how demands for critical raw materials and renewable energy infrastructure compete there. Drawing on scholarship on epistemic justice, Sámi knowledge, resource development, and Sámi land-use conflicts, the article argues that it is not enough to ask whether these activities create economic opportunities for the Sámi or serve wider European goals. The key question concerns whose knowledge defines policy impacts and whose understanding of territory shapes decisions about mining and renewable energy.
Coming soon.
