Sámification and Sámi museums

Áile Aikio’s contribution explores what Sámification, or sámáidahttit, means and could mean in the context of Sámi museums. Building on years of personal experience as a curator at the Sámi museum Siida in Inari, Finland and on discourse analysis of the Siida museum’s annual reports, Aikio argues that the fact that an institution is managed and run by a Sámi majority, or has as one of its main tasks to serve the Sámi society, does not guarantee Sámification on the level of epistemologies, values and worldviews. Without critical discussion on the nature of the institution’s organizational structures, practices and objectives, also institutions that are formally Sámi can end up perpetuating, maintaining and disseminating structures and discourses which reproduce the values of the dominant society.