Although the uses vary, resilience is generally understood as a positive quality referring to the ability of an ecosystem, individual, or system to overcome adversity, either by returning to a previous state or by adapting. Especially in politically oriented discourse, resilience has also been associated with the idea of strengthening. When an actor overcomes difficulties, they can be thought to have learned new skills or become stronger.
Since the concept of resilience has been used in various ways, it has also been criticized from different perspectives. A common critique targets the vagueness of its uses: it is not always clear, for instance, whether the concept is primarily descriptive or normative. It has also been considered problematic if resilience itself becomes an end goal, and its emphasis obscures the need for systemic change.
Within the field of biopolitical research, it has been pointed out that resilience requirements can also be used to justify shifting responsibility onto individuals and communities, who are left to cope amidst structural problems without addressing the problems themselves. This is not only unjust but also plants seeds of social unrest and distrust.
Indigenous peoples and cultures are often considered resilient by default. This is testified above all by survival under the pressures of colonialism but also by the traditional skills of using natural resources sustainably.
The excessive emphasis on Indigenous resilience has been criticized from several perspectives. For example scholars such as Julian Reid and Marjo Lindroth and Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen have considered it problematic that resilience discourse shifts attention from broader structural needs for change in societies to internal qualities of Indigenous peoples. At the same time, Indigenous cultures are essentialized: only resilient Indigeneity appears as true Indigeneity. At worst, new colonialist projects are justified—after all, resilient Indigenous peoples can endure any changes.
Audra Simpson, a member of the Kahnawake Mohawk Indigenous people, has pointed out that attributes like resilience are seemingly easy solutions, “diagnoses” that, however, do not themselves bring about change. Rather, they shift attention away from hierarchical power relations. For researchers coming from Indigenous communities, it has been characteristic to emphasize the importance of genuine political self-determination or sovereignty rather than cultural definitions.
Climate change inevitably reshapes the conditions of Sápmi, threatening, for example, traditional livelihoods. Often, climate change intertwines with other dimensions of polycrisis, such as biodiversity loss and land-use pressures associated with energy transition and most recently, militarization. These problems can accumulate into wicked problem clusters from the perspective of Sámi culture. Hence, it appears that in addition to addressing the causes and forms of these negative developments, a certain form of cultural resilience is also required. Could cultural resilience be both studied and fostered in ways that consider the critiques directed at the concept?
One way to approach this is by breaking down the concept of resilience into parts, as an analytical framework. Such an approach can at least identify detailed mechanisms of coping and their problems. Understood in this way, resilience is not an end in itself, a definition that essentializes culture, or a smokescreen for real problems, but rather a tool for examining the local, empirical manifestations of polycrisis. At the same time, it can serve as a normative goal, if desired.
In this context, I define Sámi culture as a way of life that includes the Sámi languages, livelihoods and practices important to the Sámi, Sámi communities, the (nature)cultural landscape of Sápmi, and the modes of thought and knowing connected to all these. A culture defined in this way can been seen to consist of different “layers” of human activity. These layers include, for example, the use of Sámi languages, subsistence in traditional or otherwise important livelihoods, and social-political relations. The layers affect each other in many ways: if resilience improves on one layer, it can simultaneously either improve or weaken on another.
An example is the snowmobile’s impact on reindeer herding. During the 20th century, reindeer Sámi communities became increasingly integrated into the modern monetary economy. Funds were needed for new consumer goods and tax payments, which required increasing sales of reindeer products. The introduction of the snowmobile in the 1960s helped in this: it both streamlined and lightened the work.
Initially, the change strengthened economic resilience, and it also had positive social effects. Mobility and communication became easier, and the image of reindeer herding’s viability as a way of life in a modernizing world was reinforced. In Finland, Sámi herders were the first to adopt snowmobiles, which they themselves often regarded as a sign of open-minded adaptability.
Soon, it became clear that snowmobile use was expensive, posing a threat to economic resilience. Because income was needed regularly for machines (and other expenses of modern life), the primary source of that income—the reindeer—had to be kept alive even through difficult winters. In many regions, this led to the adoption of supplementary feeding, which made it possible to maintain or even increase herd sizes even during challenging years. This practice, however, contributed to pasture degradation: in addition to grazing, larger herds trampled fragile lichen cover during the summer, a mechanism especially evident when there were insufficient possibilities for effective pasture rotation. The degradation further increased the need for feeding, thereby driving up costs.
Culturally speaking, the entire process transformed both the practical skills required in herding and the language, as old terms and concepts were partly replaced with new ones. The modes of cultural value formation also shifted, as large-scale (calf) meat production increasingly became the main goal of reindeer herding. This emphasized its character as a modern, technology-dependent enterprise, in contrast to the smaller-scale livelihood that had been strongly depended on maintaining a balance with local natural resources, and that had been constrained by the limits of what was possible within the labor of humans and the multispecies co-workers such as dogs.
Living cultures and languages change, and such a development does not necessarily threaten the existence of culture. Rather, the change can be seen as adaptation to modernization. It is noteworthy that the Northern Sámi language, old communal practices, and ecological knowledge have been well preserved precisely in reindeer herding. In some areas, new problems have also been addressed, for example, by effectively reducing winter herd sizes.
Polycrisis, however, can dramatically change the situation. Both technology and supplementary feed may become even more expensive. At the same time, already degraded pastures freeze or alternatively mold more frequently, leaving reindeer without sufficient natural food in wintertime. There are preliminary signs that lichen does not grow in a warming climate as before, even without the presence of reindeer.
The situation is further complicated by increasing pressures from competing land uses—tourism, recreational snowmobiling, wind power construction, mining projects, and military exercises. Some of these competing land uses (at least ostensibly) aim to mitigate the global polycrisis, but at the local level their effects may accelerate the crisis. A spiral emerges, in which the ecological and economic space of reindeer herding shrinks further.
At the core of Sámi cultural resilience is often precisely the local land, the Sámi (nature)cultural landscape. Traditional livelihoods that are seen central for culture, as well as the material and linguistic practices and modes of thought tied to them, depend on the local environment and its resources. Thus, a sufficiently intact and biologically viable environment forms the foundation for the development of other layers of resilience. The more often the land freezes or molds, the closer the negative tipping points of cultural resilience come. This is, of course, also a metaphor for what is happening to the planet.
Writer of this blog post is Tapio Nykänen, Associate Professor at the Giellagas Institute and (FRONT) program.
The Exploring resilience blog discusses the current themes of research, teaching and development of resilience, i.e., crisis resistance and deepens knowledge about the management of global change, and possible solutions to the wicked problems of sustainability. The authors are researchers and experts in the field, and members of the cooperation networks of the University of Oulu’s FRONT PROFI7 research programme.