A Rape of the Earth: Sámi Feminists against Mines • Dr. Ina Knobblock

About Dr. Ina Knobblock

Sámi and Tornedalian feminist scholar
Assistant Professor in Gender Studies
Gaskeuniversiteete/Mid Sweden University Östersund, Sweden

Dr. Ina Knobblock (she/her) is a Sámi and Tornedalian feminist scholar working as an assistant professor in gender studies at Gaskeuniversiteete/Mid Sweden University. Her research interests are Sámi and Indigenous feminisms, Indigenous relationality and resurgence, the intersections of gender and Indigeneity, and Indigenous and creative writing methodologies. Her dissertation Writing-Weaving Sámi Feminisms: Stories and Conversations (2022) explores, illuminates, and analyses Sámi feminist knowledges. Recent publications include “Sámi Feminist Conversations” (2022) and “A Rape of the Earth: Sámi Feminists against Mines” (2024).

About A Rape of the Earth: Sámi Feminists against Mines

“A Rape of the Earth: Sámi Feminists against Mines” (2024) is a Sámi feminist analysis of large-scale resource extraction in Sábme, the transnational Sámi territory spanning northern Fenno-Scandinavia and the Murmansk peninsula. Specifically, it centres on the mining of Indigenous land within the borders of the Swedish nation-state to explore the knowledge evolving from Sámi feminists engaged in the anti-mining struggle. Here, I argue that Indigenous epistemes—that is, the foregrounding of relationality and interdependency between land, humans, nonhuman beings, and the natural environment—are foundational to the research participants’ struggles against mining in Sábme. From within a Sámi knowledge system, mining entails fracturing the relational web of connection. Consequently, mining represents a multigenerational threat against the survival of Sámi body lands and lifeworlds.