Research project Military Conscription, Settler-Colonialism and Discrimination of the Sami People in Sweden

The project spans the period of all-male universal conscription in Sweden, when military service became associated with citizenship and symbolic inclusion in the national community, and the conscript became the embodiment of ideal citizenship. The exclusion of the Sami from conscript service during large parts of the 1900s is often referenced in historical research as a testament to their unique status as an Indigenous people with special rights. Yet the origin and motivation behind this exemption and its latter repeal have never been explored. This project traces these motivations via interviews and document sources from the Swedish Government and Parliament and various Sami organizations. 

By following the roots of exemption policy through early 1900s discourses of racial biology, which excluded reindeer herding Sami from notions of Swedishness, and at the same time problematizing the practice of forcing indigenous groups to take up arms for a settler-colonial nation-state (potentially against members of the same group), this project explores how exemptions from state mandates such as military service both can reproduce racism and thereby represent a form of discrimination and constitute an expression of Indigenous self-determination.