Cumulative effects, neglects, and conflicts due to hydropower expansion in Sápmi: anopticism and strategies in a hydropower permit case

To understand how different parties argued and acted in extraction projects in the Sámi homeland today known as Sápmi, this study examines the earliest phases of a hydropower permit case at Abelvattnet in Sweden during the 1960s. The investigation draws on the archive of the Water Court to answer questions regarding how discussions about the project’s consequences for the Sámi and reindeer husbandry were brought forward and how arguments were met. How did the different parties argue in the matter of the permit and the consequences of the intervention, as well as possible compensations to the Sámi and reindeer husbandry? During the 1950s, hydropower expansion increased dramatically in northern Sweden. Sámi organizations as well as other NGOs mobilized to voice their opinions against the industrialization. While reindeer husbandry as well as other industries in society were on the brink of rationalization according to corporate economic principles, the policy towards the Sámi and reindeer herding was strongly influenced by paternalistic attitudes from the end of the nineteenth century. The legislation involved both panoptic power over reindeer herders who were placed under state supervision, and anoptic power for authorities to degrade, limit and make invisible the land use for reindeer herding. Legislation also defined the group of Sámi who would have access to the Sámi land rights, something that created a division within the Sámi people. This study illuminates the consequences of ignorance about what the external pressure in the form of hydropower expansion can pose, as well as the authorities’ strategies to meet a supposedly ever-increasing need for energy.