The poetics of climate change and politics of pain: Sámi social media activist critique of the Swedish state

Abstract

This chapter discusses the ways in which Indigenous activists are strategically utilising social media platforms such as YouTube for affective appeal regarding the current global wave of environmental activism, and in so doing challenge destructive state-centric governance. It argues for the importance of understanding climate change as a political crisis with ecological consequences that exacerbates pre-existing social inequalities. To do this, we apply content and discourse analysis to selected social media interventions by Sámi artist Sofia Jannok, as a part of broader Sámi protests against state-supported mining companies’ destruction of Sápmi landscape and livelihoods. Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s Cultural Politics of Emotions, the chapter argues for the importance of connecting Sámi art, emotions and affect, and activist politics to expose the ways in which climate change centrally relies on unsustainable capitalist energy and settler colonialism anchored in nation-state governance, in this case, Sweden. It thereby aims to highlight the significance of Sámi social media activism for Indigenous struggles for political rights and existence. The chapter argues for the significance of analysing expressions of pain, injury, and anger in Sámi protest on social media, as they expose important connections between contemporary manifestations of affect on social media and the history of Swedish settler colonialism and contemporary structural discrimination of the Sámi.