Mapping Land and People in the North: Early Modern Colonial Expansion, Exploitation, and Knowledge 1

[...]we wish to point to possible alternative modes of mapping land and history in Sápmi, which have been put forth as part of the Sámi ethnopolitical and cultural revitalization movements (relating to similar movements in Indigenous cartography and counter-mapping in other parts of the world), and which may offer opportunities to engage with and visualize colonial histories and relations in a more dynamic manner and furthermore contribute to decolonization movements in Sápmi and Sweden. [...]land and the understanding of land have been, and still are, of central importance in the colonial confrontations and negotiations in Sápmi, and certainly in the different mapping projects affecting this region. Since the medieval period, Sweden's main export commodity was iron, in the form of pig iron, and copper in the form of sheets and rods (Hildebrand 1992). A similar development is visible within the copper industry where more of the copper, in Sweden, was turned into brass, which was even more coveted on the global market than copper. Since most of metal industry was run by private enterprise, with the notable exception of the silver production, the state had little interest in surveying these industries.