Testing the Essential Categories: Performativity in the Analysis of the Political Identity and Subjectivity of the Sami

In the analysis of different ethnic groups & their political action, there often arises the problem of essentializing these groups, in other words, analytical groupism. The problematic consequence of this tendency is that the groups in question & their assumed substance are taken as given. In this article, the theory of performativity is applied to avoid analytical groupism in the analysis of the political identity & subjectivity of one ethnic group, the Sami. The task is carried out by investigating Sami ethnopolitical & discursive practices that produce & maintain coherent Saminess. On the collective level, the Sami identity is based largely on the recognized position of the Sami as a people, more precisely, as an indigenous people. The practices of constructing & maintaining the Sami as a people & an indigenous people are examined as questions of productive & reiterative power, ie., as performative. Thus, performativity refers to the reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena it names & regulates. It is argued that Sami ethnopolitical & discursive practices of performing the Sami as a people & an indigenous people are performative acts in which power functions performatively within relatively established discourses. Adapted from the source document.