Self-Governance and Sami Communities [electronic resource] : Transitions in Early Modern Natural Resource Management / by Jesper Larsson, Eva-Lotta Päiviö Sjaunja.

Part I: Introduction, Framework, Methods and Starting Points -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Linking long-term changes in socioecological systems with the development of property rights -- Chapter 3: Methods and staring points -- Chapter 4: Important variables -- Part II: Land Use, Livelihood and Ecological Settings -- Chapter 5: Fishing -- Chapter 6: Hunting -- Chapter 7: Reindeer husbandry -- Chapter 8: Other -- Part III: Synthesis -- Chapter 9: From private to common - coevolution of land-use practices and property rights -- Chapter 10: Early modern self-governance and colonial structures - the current state of affairs.

Open Access

This open access book uses an interdisciplinary approach that not only focuses on social organization but also analyzes how societies and ecological settings were interwoven. How did early modern indigenous Sami inhabitants in interior northwest Fennoscandia build institutions for governance of natural resources? The book answers this question by exploring how they made decisions regarding natural resource management, mainly with regard to wild game, fish, and grazing land and illuminate how Sami users, in a changing economy, altered the long-term rules for use of land and water in a self-governance context. The early modern period was a transforming phase of property rights due to fundamental changes in Sami economy: from an economy based on fishing and hunting to an economy where reindeer pastoralism became the main occupation for many Sami. The book gives a new portrayal of how proficiently and systematically indigenous inhabitants organized and governed natural assets and how capable they were in building highly functioning institutions for governance. Jesper Larsson is an associate professor and senior lecturer in Agrarian History at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. He is an affiliated faculty to the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University Bloomington. This book is part of his appointment as a research fellow at The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. Eva-Lotta Päiviö Sjaunja is a researcher in Agrarian History at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. She is a doctor of philosophy in Agricultural Sciences and did her postdoctoral work at the Department of Economic History at Stockholm University. She also works as senior analyst at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. She is of Sami descent.