Saami ethnoecology: Resource management in Norwegian Lapland

The social organization, folk knowledge, and physiographic factors shaping Saami transactions with the natural environment are systematized for various ethnoecologic domains and examined for patterns underlying the structure, persistence, and change in the classification of knowledge involved in resource management. The study is an outgrowth of nearly five years of fieldwork among reindeer-breeding and sedentary population segments in the region comprising western Finnmark and northern Troms counties. This study emphasizes the dynamic nature of sociocultural, linguistic, cognitive, and ecological processes articulating a system of resource management in space and through time.