Over the past decades, both individual museums and the museum institution have acknowledged their colonial entanglements and taken steps to decolonize museum structures and practices aiming to establish more reciprocal and equal relationships with Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups.
However, only recently has there been a deeper recognition of how these issues are rooted in the hegemony of European epistemology and axiology—an intellectual framework that has long prevented alternative ways of thinking from being acknowledged in museum work. The full extent of the decolonization required, as well as its critical importance for the future credibility and relevance of museums, has only gradually begun to be understood. Consequently, there has been a growing effort to develop new, more inclusive approaches to museum practices to tackle this task.
In the lecture, based on her doctoral dissertation, Áile Aikio examines the Sámification of the museum—how the Sámi have established Sámi museums and, through these institutions, redefined the concept and practices of the museum to better align with the needs and interests of the Sámi people and Sámi cultural heritage. She conceptualizes this transformation as a two-way process, which she terms the Sámification of museums. In this process, Sámi museums both adapt and translate Sámi realities and cultural heritage into generally recognizable museological forms, while simultaneously reshaping the museum and its practices to meet the dynamic needs of the Sámi people. She suggests that the Sámification of the Sámi museum serves as a valuable concept for understanding what constitutes a Sámi museum and Sámi museum work, while also broadening our perceptions of both museums and Sámi cultural heritage more generally. Furthermore, she argues that the Sámification of museums offers a concrete example of how Indigenous agency can transform colonial institutions and provides a lens through which to explore the possibilities of truly decolonized museum practices.
To contextualize the Sámification of museums, Áile Aikio's lecture will examine the historical and contemporary relationship between the museum institution and the Sámi people. It will trace the various phases of this long and fraught relationship, analyzing how Sámi culture and heritage have been acquired and represented in museum exhibitions and what societal debates and theoretical frameworks have guided these choices, reflecting the prevailing discourses and ways of thinking of their time—what theoretical and societal frameworks have informed these portrayals, and what implications they have had for the Sámi. At the end of the lecture, Aikio will reflect on a fundamental question: What defines a Sámi museum? What makes a Sámi museum a Sámi institution?
Áile Aikio (she/her) is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Lapland, Finland. Her research interests include Sámi cultural heritage and art, decolonization and indigenization of heritage institutions and practices, and multispecies coexistence. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences and an MA in Ethnology. Currently, she is contributing to the project “Sámi Political Traditions and Thought in Co-becoming with the Environment,” funded by the Research Council of Finland. Prior to her doctoral studies, Aikio worked as a Curator at the Sámi Museum Siida, first in collections and later as the Head Curator, overseeing exhibitions and museum education, including planning, curation, and educational program development.
