Meet FRONT doctoral researcher Arla Magga: “I examine how duodji is preserved and transmitted today as a living cultural heritage”

Arla Magga is a doctoral researcher in Saami culture at the Giellagas institute and a part of the University of Oulu’s multidisciplinary FRONT research programme. Her work focuses on duodji courses that bring Saami learners together to practise traditional handicrafts—often providing knowledge that was disrupted and thus weakened due to historical and societal changes.

“My research examines how duodji is preserved and transmitted today as a living cultural heritage,” Magga explains.

Affects and embodied knowledge in Saami duodji

Duodji includes items such as clothing, accessories and tools made using traditional Saami techniques and nature-based knowledge. Historically, these skills were essential for survival in Arctic environments. Today, duodji also carries strong cultural, relational and symbolic meanings, offering ways to interact non-verbally especially with others in the Saami community.

Traditional garments such as gákti, the traditional Saami dress and their components, such as a hat, can express one’s belonging to a certain family and kin, making them an affective marker of Saami identity. Magga’s research explores how these objects are given affective meanings and how they shape encounters and relationships between people, places and other beings.

At the heart of Magga´s research is an interest in affect theory, combined with Indigenous Saami perspectives. In Magga’s understanding, affect refers to a particular form of social, cultural and political contact and a relation between bodies that may not always be easily verbalised but are felt, lived and experienced. They matter precisely because they involve different movements towards and away from others. In other words, affects generate different kinds of actions and orientations.

“I’m especially interested in how we’re affected and moved by other bodies and other-than-human matter, such as duodji”.

Using participant observation and interviews, Magga studies duojárs, by which she means Saami crafters who take part in duodji courses.

“The courses offer many Saami, like me, a space to learn crafts and traditional knowledge linked to them that we haven’t been able to learn at home or with other relatives,” Magga says.

Magga’s research path is closely intertwined with personal experience. After moving hundreds of kilometres away from home to study, an interest in crafting and its associated knowledge gradually grew—especially knowledge that had not been passed down within their family, despite duodji having always been part of it.

Engaging in duodji courses eventually led to the idea of researching these processes academically. Returning to the University of Oulu as a doctoral researcher also feels like a homecoming, as Magga completed their master’s degree at the university.

Modernisation and the relocation of children to residential schools have changed the Saami’s material and spiritual culture – duodji still remains as a connector across time

Over the past century, the Saami‘s material culture has undergone significant change. Processes such as modernisation and the relocation of Sámi children to residential schools have disrupted the intergenerational transmission of duodji skills. Many Saami now revive these traditions in adult learning settings.

Based on personal experience and early research observations, Magga notes that duodji is often experienced as a strong connector across time, helping to create a sense of affirmative belonging, continuity and community. At the same time, working with and wearing duodji can be emotionally complex and ambivalent.

“Emotionality and affectivity associated with duodji have not yet been studied or described in more detail,” Magga says.

By focusing on affects, the research can contribute not only to Saami studies but also to broader discussions about power relations, historical and contemporary political, social and economic issues – and possibilities.

“In this way, I am especially interested in what emotions and duodji do.”

Resilience as concept to engage critically with

Magga’s work links to one of FRONT’s focus themes: the social and community aspects of Sámi life. While her research does not aim to define resilience, it engages critically with the concept and questions simplified narratives.

In a blog post on Cultural Resilience in Sápmi, FRONT researcher and associate professor Tapio Nykänen draws on Kahnawake Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson, who notes that terms like resilience can become easy “diagnoses” that do not bring change, and may shift attention away from power relations and Indigenous self-determination.

“My wish is to develop our understanding of the intimate entanglements circulated around duodji and the consequences. And this does not only mean relations between the Saami, but also the relationship between the Saami and the majority population, ” Magga says.

Towards building a greater sensitivity for shared challenges and imagining more sustainable futures while crafting

Alongside academic work, participation in international and interdisciplinary research communities plays an important role in shaping ideas.

“I get my best ideas when I discuss with other people about their research—or when I craft,” Magga says.

Looking ahead, Magga hopes that FRONT will help build greater sensitivity toward shared challenges and diverse ways of imagining sustainable futures.

“I expect and hope that, through and with research, we could better see and understand what we have in common—and what we could learn from people with different cultural backgrounds and ways of seeing the world,” Magga says.

Outside of research, crafting remains central—not only as a subject of study but also to relax and recharge. Cross-country skiing offers another way to unwind.

Next, Magga is transcribing interview material and preparing for upcoming appearances at StopHatredNow 2026 Festival, UArctic Congress in the Faroe Islands, and the Feminist New Materialism conference in Spain.

Further reading: The State of Finland was established on the lands of two peoples, the Sámi and Finns.