Identities, ethnicities and borderzones

"This book analyses identity processes and politics in Finnmark, Northern Norway. Finnmark can be described as a "cultural borderzone" because of the historical presence of a number of culturally different groups. The book covers the period of the early 1990s to the first years of the new millennium. In Finnmark, this period was characterized by the Saami [Sami, Lapps, Laplanders] cultural revival and the Norwegian State's recognition of the Saami as an indigenous ethnic group [Aboriginal or Native peoples] with certain political rights. This development in Saami society became pivotal for the identity processes among the other inhabitants of this area. The institutional representations of differences among separate groups coincided only marginally with the perception of differences that existed in everyday discourse in the local communities."--back cover.