Sámi 'Geographs' and the Promise of Concentric Geographies
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From relations to dissociations in spatial thinking: Sámi ‘geographs’ and the promise of concentric geographies ARI AUKUSTI LEHTINEN Lehtinen, Ari Aukusti (2011). From relations to dissociations in spatial thinking: Sámi ‘geographs’ and the promise of concentric geographies. Fennia 189: 2, pp. 14–30. Helsinki. ISSN 0015-0010. This article critically examines the currently popular renewal in human geogra- phy inspired by relational thinking. Particular emphasis is directed to formula- tions informed by the philosophies of immanence. It is argued that this tendency carries the risk of being narrowed into cursory excursions on the immediate geographies of what happens. The article is consequently concerned about the resulting scholarly indifference when it comes to socio-spatial discontinuities and circles of particularity. It is also shown in what type of settings the ‘imma- nent relationalism’ becomes a too general view to explain satisfactorily the earthly co-being of humans and non-humans, and presents alternative ‘lines of flight’. The case study focusing on the indigenous Sámi in the European North exemplifies the nuances of cultural domination versus decline in a multilingual milieu whereupon some criteria for identifying particular place-making under the general pressures of all-inclusion are formulated. Keywords: Sámi homeland, geographies of difference, comparative reading, ‘geographs’, polyglot interfaces, relational and concentric spaces Ari Aukusti Lehtinen, Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, Uni- versity of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland. E-mail: ari. [email protected] Introduction: geographies of as consequences of social and environmental withdrawal changes put forward and accepted by the sur- rounding society. They are thus, undeniably, sup- Ä´kkel Sámi, one of the Eastern Sámi languages ported by our silent acceptance, if not ignorance spoken on the Kola peninsula, crossed the thresh- or indifference. old of extinction in December 29, 2003 when the By losing minor language communities we also last native speaker, Marya Sergina, passed away lose affordances for learning from those cosmolo- (Rantala 2011: 188). The drama of the event oc- gies that deviate from the currently vital ones. curred without much public attention. Northern- Their particular geographies are lost. What is also most Europe will experience similar tragedies in at stake is the gradual erosion of our multilingual the near future, too, as several of the neighbouring affluence, both in general, at the level of humani- Sámi languages are currently only spoken by a few ty, and within specific marginal culture milieus, elderly persons. In time, perhaps, only the North- such as the Sámi homeland in Northern Europe, ern Sámi will survive, the language spoken by the where communication has by necessity, due to most numerous of the Sámi communities, much lingual fragmentation and heterogeneity, been concentrating in northern Norway. This process is grounded on polyglot skills. The polyglot commu- not only a particular phenomenon characterising nities mirror the geopolitical changes of the past. the extreme North of Europe but is common glo- The surrounding regimes that have come for taxes, bally (Howitt 2001; Maybury-Lewis 2003; Heik- natural resources and military strongholds, for ex- kilä 2008; Saugestad 2009). These losses cannot ample, have brought along their lingual premises. be regarded as natural and unavoidable but rather Human co-being is often characterised at these URN:NBN:fi:tsv-oa4405 FENNIA 189: 2 (2011) From relations to dissociations in spatial thinking: Sámi … 15 type of cultural interfaces by continuous multilin- non-linkages we can, for example, highlight events gual border-crossing. Vocabularies and modes of of confusion grounded on a sense of loss due to expression are enriched by shared inspiration, (partial) non-resonance in multilingual milieus. which can be witnessed, for example, in the high We then become sensitive to geographies of inco- number of loaned words (see e.g. Häkkinen 2004). herence, impairment and withdrawal. This is, as is This co-being also, inevitably, proceeds through argued in this article, not easy in contemporary frustration: renewed spaces of lingual competence human geography where dissociations tend to be tend to marginalise certain more traditional sec- shadowed by those approaches that are attracted tions of communities (Bladh 1995; Andersen by continuous evolution of linkages and relations. 2004; Herman 2008; Fryer 2009). In addition, In general, and this is what I want to highlight first communication often becomes incomplete while, and problematise below, the broadly shared and for example, translations only partially catch what celebrated immanent-relational ontology has sys- is initially intended (Keisteri 1990: 32−47; Haila tematically ignored discontinuities and withdraw- 1997: 130−133; Häkli 2003; Rautio-Helander al, if not treated them as anomalies, or remnants 2004; Sidaway et al. 2004; Setten 2006). from the past, not deserving any proper examina- The occasional comfort achieved through guid- tion. Therefore, I intend to show where and in ance from neighbouring languages is thus often in what type of settings the relational extensiveness multilingual cooperation accompanied by regret turns too broad and panoramic a view to satisfac- about losing something important when using torily explain human co-being on earth. loaned words. Debate about mistakes and biases In addition, I will sketch out the contours for an in translations frequently arises in literature and approach that pays attention to those concentric toponymic research, for example (see Andersen aspects of human co-being that, as I will demon- 2004; Baschmakoff 2007: 12−13; Myers 2009). strate, need to be recognised in order to be able to These types of concerns bear witness to nuances of identify and examine the events of non-communi- expression that are at risk of being lost when mov- cation, annihilation and withdrawal. Consequent- ing from one lingual domain to another. Some- ly, I argue below for more scholarly appreciation times, while translating, pleasing conceptual when it comes to the corners of particularity; that equivalents are almost, if not completely, impossi- is: particularities that do not follow the more gen- ble to find. Moreover, at times dictionaries seem to eral processes which evoke them. mislead us in the search for precise correspond- ence. Particular geographs, that is: customary de- scriptions of our surroundings (Dalby 1993, 2002; Events of non-resonance, traces of Häkli 1998; see also Tanner’s 1929a ‘geographical withdrawal concepts’) simply cannot always be exported. Ge- ographical lexicons and nomenclatures, including British sociologist Rowland Atkinson (2009) is the logics of naming and mapping, vary between concerned about the ignoring of spaces of rest, de- lingual groups, as does the sense of seeing changes cline, despair and loneliness that lie all around us, in the environment (Schanche 2002; Ruotsala but which are partially invisible by virtue of their 2004: 42). Finally, in certain moments of interlin- separateness. He discusses how much of socio- gual border-crossing, one might sense a meeting of spatial studies, while favouring assumptions about epistemic orientations that do not resonate (Tanner the extensions of connectivity, tend to amplify the 1929b; Susiluoto 2000: 16; Heikkilä 2008: 58−85). marginalisation of those outside these connec- The dialogue between inspiration and frustra- tions. He then, after exemplary illustrations of hu- tion is thus a perpetual part of daily communica- man isolations, such as secret cities of Russia, use tion along polyglot interfaces. Both affections of human disappearances in Latin America as a serve as a reminder of discontinuities, or the exist- tool of political terror, missing millions of the 1991 ence of non-communication (Bateson & Bateson UK census and home withdrawals of teenagers in 1987; Ketola et al. 2002), in human co-being. Japan, concludes by worrying that “there is a dan- Thus, lingual skills, perhaps the most relational of ger that the new limits to the world have been de- all human modes of co-being, stand, paradoxical- fined within corporate frames and information ly, as proof of radical discontinuities. This remark technologies” which indicates “social inequalities has, or at least should have, implications in geo- and an unevenness of distribution which rides past graphical research design. By focusing on these the relevance and presence of those social groups 16 Ari Aukusti Lehtinen FENNIA 189: 2 (2011) and fractions for whom such changes are only per- tial and indifferent to social content” (Simonsen haps relevant in terms of their potential to exclude. 2004: 1337). The new vocabulary has, she admits, His key question is simply, “[h]ow can we begin to added much to the understanding of contempo- conceptualize non-linkages, absent ties, broken rary society by “[p]ointing out the significance of networks and unwired ‘dead’ spaces” (2009: process at the expense of structure, mobility at the 308−309)? expense of embeddedness, and connectivity at the The specific history of geographical thinking ex- expense of enclosure” (2004: 1335). There is plains much of the current omission of socio-spa- much that is good and supportable here, she ar- tial separation and non-linkages in human geogra- gues, but continues with concerns about the non- phy. Gradually, while observing the troubles of reflective