Solveig Marie Wang. Decolonising Medieval Fennoscandia: An Interdisciplinary Study of Norse-Saami Relations in the Medieval Period

Medieval Fennoscandia as a site of colonial activity has not received extensive consideration in either popular or academic spheres, even as its histories and portrayals have, intentionally or unintentionally, participated in colonial ideologies and practices of the modern period.In her interdisciplinary monograph focusing on the relationship between the Norse and the Saami, Solveig Marie Wang directly tackles these issues.Examining the medieval textual material alongside archaeological evidence, Wang explores the "multifaceted and dynamic portrayal of Saami characters" (26) and how these suggest diverse manifestations of real Norse-Saami interactions.Drawing on postcolonial and decolonizing approaches, Wang aims to provide alternative readings that destabilize persistent, one-dimensional, and often harmful narratives about the people of medieval Fennoscandia, especially the Saami.As Wang explains, challenging these narratives is critical, since explicit or unintentionally retained imperialist and racial discourse has been complicit in modern colonial activities and ongoing discrimination against the Saami.To resist this, Wang employs postcolonial approaches to Indigeneity that decentre the Norse as the sole point of power and agency from narratives of Norse-Saami history and bring the Saami into the narrative as equal and active agents in the historical processes around them.By considering the Saami as dynamic and active participants in their own and Norse histories, Wang reveals a more nuanced picture of the sociocultural and political landscape of medieval Fennoscandia.Wang begins with a general overview of medieval Norse-Saami relations and the historiography of historical and archaeological research focusing on the Saami in this period.This is followed by a detailed survey of the premodern sources that reference the Saami, which form the textual corpus for her research.Wang explores ecclesiastic, historiographic, and legal texts from the Fennoscandian region, as well as relevant material from other parts of Northern Europe and the Mediterranean region.Evidence from the Íslendingasögur, konungasögur, and fornaldarsögur represent the majority of the source material.Wang's use of the fornaldarsögur is noteworthy, as the historical value of these sagas has often been overlooked because of their fantastical content.