Afanasyeva, A. Forced relocations of the Kola Sámi people: background and consequences / by Anna Afanasyeva. - Tromsø: University of Tromsø, 2013. - 82 p.: ill., map, portr.

3 Another aspect that I would like to touch upon which was a challenge for me before the fieldwork and eventually found its resolution, was my ability to narrow down scope of the study. Unfortunately the scope of the following Master’s work does not allow descriptions of most processes in detail. The fieldwork showed that the policy of relocation affected Sámi people in many aspects of their life. However, the limited availability of time, which should be devoted to the fieldwork, plays its role in considering several main arguments, which are narrowed down to the three main aspects coming out from the data provided by community members. Narrowing down the scope of such a broad topic also constitutes a challenge, which is reflected by taking additional time for more thorough preparatory work with relevant written sources before carrying out the interviews with community representatives. The main research questions the study pursued to attain are: What were the reasons and background for the forced relocations of the Kola Sámi people? In which ways did the forced relocations affect the Kola Sámi community? 1.3 Theoretical approach and prior research overview Forced displacements and relocations in general, of indigenous peoples as well as other communities, are common throughout the world and have caused similar consequences and impacts. According to the World Bank statement many populations in the world as well as indigenous peoples had undergone serious impacts on their communities as a result of involuntary resettlement: When the people are forcibly removed, production systems may be dismantled, long-established residential settlements are disorganized, and kinship groups are scattered. Many jobs and assets are lost. Informal social networks that are part of daily sustenance systems – providing mutual help in childcare, food security, revenue transfers, labour exchange and other basic sources of socio-economic support – collapse because of territorial dispersion […] Local organizations and formal and informal associations disappear because of the sudden departure of their members, often in different directions. Traditional authority and management systems can lose leaders. Symbolic markers, such as ancestral shrines and graves are abandoned, breaking links between the past and with peoples’ cultural identity. Not always visible or quantifiable, these processes are nonetheless real. 8 In the current study I found it necessary to address to the anthropological studies on involuntary migration and displacement, such as Cernea and Guggenheim (1993), Gray (1996), Chatty, Colchester (2002), Oliver-Smith (2009), Oliver-Smith (2010). 8 Statement of the World Bank (1994) in Chatty, Colchester 2002: 2.