Chapter 19 Toxic speech, political self-Indigenization and the ethics and politics of critique Notes from Finland
Junka-Aikio, Laura
Chapter 19 Toxic speech, political self-Indigenization and the ethics and politics of critique Notes from Finland - Taylor & Francis 2022 - 1 electronic resource (19 p.)
Open Access
Over the past decades, online hate speech against the Indigenous Sm̀i people has sharply proliferated, and in each Nordic country, it is now considered a problem requiring counter-measures and further study. This chapter employs Lynne Tirrell's notion of toxic speech to examine anti-Sm̀i hate speech that is specific to the political terrain in Finland. There, such speech is particularly common in debates which centre on criticism of the Sm̀i Parliament, voiced mainly by popular movements which promote political self-Indigenization to gain access in the Sm̀i Parliament's electoral register. Although these movements make explicit use of academic knowledge production and discourses which highlight Sm̀i cultural revitalization and recovery, the study shows how, on the level of popular rhetoric and in the social media, the same discourses are operationalized to purposefully undermine Sm̀i peoplehood and rights, to denigrate any individual or institution which is seen to defend such rights, and to disseminate pejorative representations of the Sm̀i. The chapter ends with a short exploration of possible reasons which explain why this form of toxic speech has so far been particularly impervious to criticism and public exposure.
Creative Commons
English
9780367458157 9781003025511-22 9781032263243
10.4324/9781003025511-22 doi
Anthropology
Indigenous peoples
Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography
Arctic, Sm̀i, indigenous, politics, free speech, identity, online, hate speech
Chapter 19 Toxic speech, political self-Indigenization and the ethics and politics of critique Notes from Finland - Taylor & Francis 2022 - 1 electronic resource (19 p.)
Open Access
Over the past decades, online hate speech against the Indigenous Sm̀i people has sharply proliferated, and in each Nordic country, it is now considered a problem requiring counter-measures and further study. This chapter employs Lynne Tirrell's notion of toxic speech to examine anti-Sm̀i hate speech that is specific to the political terrain in Finland. There, such speech is particularly common in debates which centre on criticism of the Sm̀i Parliament, voiced mainly by popular movements which promote political self-Indigenization to gain access in the Sm̀i Parliament's electoral register. Although these movements make explicit use of academic knowledge production and discourses which highlight Sm̀i cultural revitalization and recovery, the study shows how, on the level of popular rhetoric and in the social media, the same discourses are operationalized to purposefully undermine Sm̀i peoplehood and rights, to denigrate any individual or institution which is seen to defend such rights, and to disseminate pejorative representations of the Sm̀i. The chapter ends with a short exploration of possible reasons which explain why this form of toxic speech has so far been particularly impervious to criticism and public exposure.
Creative Commons
English
9780367458157 9781003025511-22 9781032263243
10.4324/9781003025511-22 doi
Anthropology
Indigenous peoples
Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography
Arctic, Sm̀i, indigenous, politics, free speech, identity, online, hate speech