The Smi, who have inhabited Europe's far north for thousands of years, are often referred to as the continent's "forgotten people." With Spmi, their traditional homeland, divided between four nation-states--Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia--the Smi have experienced the profound oppression and discrimination that characterize the fate of indigenous people worldwide: their lands have been confiscated, their beliefs and values attacked, their communities and families torn apart. Yet the Smi have shown incredible resilience, defending their identity and their territories and retaining an important social and ecological voice--even if many, progressives and leftists included, refuse to listen.
Liberating Spmi is a stunning journey through Spmi and includes in-depth interviews with Smi artists, activists, and scholars boldly standing up for the rights of their people. In this beautifully illustrated work, Gabriel Kuhn, author of over a dozen books and our most fascinating interpreter of global social justice movements, aims to raise awareness of the ongoing fight of the Smi for justice and self-determination. The first accessible English-language introduction to the history of the Smi people and the first account that focuses on their political resistance, this provocative work gives irrefutable evidence of the important role the Smi play in the resistance of indigenous people against an economic and political system whose power to destroy all life on earth has reached a scale unprecedented in the history of humanity.
The book contains interviews with Mari Boine, Harald Gaski, Ann-Kristin Hkansson, Aslak Holmberg, Maxida Mrak, Stefan Mikaelsson, May-Britt hman, Synn ve Persen, yvind Ravna, Niillas Somby, Anders Sunna, and Suvi West.