From Indigenous private property to full dispossession – the peculiar case of Sápmi

The concept of dispossession has become ubiquitous in contemporary critical theory, including analyses of settler colonialism and Indigenous scholarship. It suggests that in addition to being colonised, Indigenous peoples have been deprived of their lands and the territorial foundations of their societies. Critics, however, allege that theories and arguments of Indigenous dispossession are inconsistent, arguing that Indigenous peoples did not have conceptions of land as property or possession. The critics’ question is as follows: how can there be an act of dispossession if there was no prior possession or Indigenous concept of ownership? This article examines a case where there was both prior possession and a concept of ownership adopted by and extended to an Indigenous people, the Sámi, and upheld by the colonial court system. What can the Sámi case of individual (family) land ownership tell us about the concept of dispossession and Indigenous conceptions of ownership and property? The objective is to demonstrate how the concept of dispossession has different histories in different contexts, and how individual land ownership has not historically been alien to Indigenous peoples.