Aato: A flickering light on the external construction of Sámi.

Abstract: The first part of this study examines how Sámi as a social construction was shaped by the outside world from 98 CE to the mid-19th century. Ancient texts, medieval letters and literature that indicate change in discourse are used as primary sources in a historico-critical analysis. The sources are discussed with the help of secondary literature based on a constructionist approach, where language and discourse are at the core of shaping our objective reality and knowledge. The analysis of the historical sources helps us to understand our philosophical a priori, the unconscious imprint that is our worldview, our conceptual world, our boundaries, and our colonial heritage. The second part of the study analyses how the construction appears in the contemporary issue of the repatriation of Sámi remains in Swedish news articles between 1999 and 2022. The approach used in the second part is critical discourse analysis, a desktop method suitable for studying existing texts from the outside without disturbing the indigenous population. The contemporary article texts can be used to highlight the discourse and its intertextuality with the earliest writings on the Sámi. Together they can illustrate the hidden oppression of the Sámi.