From the Margin to the Centre: Rights Development, Transitional Justice and Indigeneity in the Nordics

Introduction

Globally, indigenous peoples’ rights appear to become recognised to a greater extent, but are indigenous groups more included in settler states’ laws and societies? Built on the strong foundation of legal mobilisation, rights development, and transitional justice theories, MARCEN aims to inaugurate a paradigm-shifting legal inclusion theory with broad implementation possibilities.

Objectives

With the goal of establishing a new scientific foundation to understand the interplay between supranational and national legal frameworks, governance practices, and the socio-legal position of indigenous groups, the first contours of this legal inclusion theory will be outlined using the most prominent indigenous group in Europe – the Sámi in the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, and Finland) as a comparative case study.

Research Focus

With the Sámi under scrutiny, MARCEN will address:

1. How supranational and national legal regulation and rights developments affect the governance of indigeneity;
2. The historical (1920s–2020s) perspective of indigeneity framing and governance;
3. The impetuses, scopes, and effects of indigenous truth and reconciliation commissions;
4. How indigenous groups have used law and global rights discourses to mobilise, voice claims, and improve their position.

Methodology

Using an innovative methodology, MARCEN is uniquely positioned to bridge the interdisciplinary gaps in the interplay between international and national laws, policies, legal cultures, theory, and practice.

Implications

The legal inclusion theory will be the starting point of a prominent research field, with extensive applicability within and beyond indigenous rights. As such, the findings of the project extend to the fields of integration, migration, marginalisation, inequality, and discrimination.

Conclusion

Building on my 10-year track record covering socio-legal scholarship, MARCEN will give me the opportunity to enable the urgently needed shift towards greater understanding of legal inclusion and exclusion.