Liisa-Rávná Finbog

It Speaks to You

Based on a large pool of oral material as well as multiple S mi museum collections, this book examines the connection between S mi identities, duodji, sovereignty and S mi heritage objects in museums. Traditionally, duodji has been defined as S mi "craft", but in her work Finbog demonstrates how this definition is the result of a historical devaluation caused by multiple colonial strategies. She goes on to redefine the practice of duodji as an important S mi epistemology of aesthetics and muitalusat stories] centered within a system of relations that are expressed as bonds of kinship. Drawing on the concepts, paradigms and analytical tools created from this system of knowledge, Finbog engages with multiple processes and expressions of S mi Indigenous identity and sovereignty within the context of museums and cultural heritage institutions. Using the practices, materials, and relations of S mi duodji as a lens, she thus provides new insights into the role of S mi museums as Indigenous institutions, and furthermore how such institutions have come to provide an important component of S mi epistemologies. By way of multiple conversations as well as museum visits with duoj rat, or practitioners of duodji, Finbog also investigates the relation between museums, duodji, and S mi source communities, showing how the formation of these relations have a massive impact on both S mi identities and perceptions of sovereignty. As such, the book provides a far more complex picture and understanding of museum collections, S mi museums as cultural heritage institutions, and the multiple and diverse processes that are initiated in the negotiation of S mi identities and expressions of sovereignty, than has been historically assumed.