Project title
The Dutch in the North: Decolonizing Sámi-Dutch relations of the seventeenth century
Research question
What sources from the seventeenth century trade with Sápmi exist in the Netherlands? What material sources can be linked to the Sámi–Dutch trade?
Project description
In this project, Jonas Monié Nordin investigates Dutch trading companies and traders in northern Scandinavia during the second half of the seventeenth century.
What was the role of Dutch investors in Sápmi – the land of the Sami? Conversely, what role did Sápmi and the Sámi people play in structuring Dutch colonial practice and colonial ideology? And what does a decolonial approach to this history look like?
To answer these questions, Nordin examines Dutch-Scandinavian-Sámi interactions within the broader context of Dutch colonialism in the seventeenth century. The Dutch in the north were part of a global commercial and colonial network centred on Amsterdam. His decolonial approach to Dutch-Scandinavian-Sámi history embraces this global perspective while remaining grounded in local indigenous contexts.
Selected publications
- Nordin, J.M. 2020. The Scandinavian Early Modern World: A Global Historical Archaeology. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429328176.
- Nordin, J.M. 2022. Spaces of Resilience and Resistance: Sámi Habitation in Southern and Central Sweden During the Late Medieval and the Early Modern Period. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 27, 480–505, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-022-00659-2.
- Nordin, J.M & Olofsson, S. 2023. Voices of the Forests: Eviction, Control, and the rise of the so-called Parish-Lap system in Central Early Modern Sweden. Scandinavian Journal of History 48:4, 401–426 DOI:10.1080/03468755.2023.2219680.