Truth and Reconciliation in the Nordic Countries

Abstract:

Inspired by the Greenlandic reconciliation process, Norway, Sweden and Finland have over the past two years set up truth and reconciliation commissions to deal with the long-term effects of historical injustices committed against the Sami and Finnish-speaking minorities in Arctic Scandinavia. This project examines what happens when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has previously been used to create peace and stability after armed aggression or civil war, is moved into a Scandinavian context. It makes us wiser about how core concepts such as reconciliation, truth, violence and sovereignty are transformed in the meeting between political representatives of indigenous peoples and the representatives of the state. It is especially the welfare state's assimilation policies and historical reform programs for health and education that are the subject of the Nordic commissions. Therefore, the processes will hit down into key elements of the welfare state's own self-narrative. The project works with the concept of historiographical sovereignty in the analysis of the struggle for history and the right to tell it, and the significance of history writing for indigenous peoples' demands for territories and resources in Scandinavia. This comparative project investigates a completely new empirical material, and will therefore contribute to international research. It is based on Andersen's previous research in the relationship between Greenland and Denmark and will also shed more light on the discussions about the history of the welfare state that are often raised in that context.​