Bridging Divides: Ethno-Political Leadership among the Russian Sámi - Softcover

"Excellent chapters detail the emergence of cross-border ties between Russia's Sami communities and Nordic Sami and assess their contributions to cultural renewal - The socioeconomic and cultural portrait will likely seem all too familiar to scholars of other Arctic and subarctic indigenous populations in northern Eurasia, but some of the information is unique to Russia's Sami, making this an indispensable contribution to the documentation of northern peoples. Essential." * Choice "The work offers an important case study - of an indigenous revitalisation movement and thereby allows for comparison with similar developments not only among the officially recognised forty 'Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation' but also with other indigenous peoples in industrialised countries - It is a valuable contribution to the literature on language loss and bilingualism and the phenomenon of gender-shift frequently discussed in recent anthropological literature about the Russian North." * Stephan Dudeck, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland "The authors give the reader a close and sophisticated analysis of the almost impossible project of restoring a cultural tradition, a lost language and way of life balancing precariously under harsh and marginal ecological and economic conditions. - [It is] well written, well organized as a text and well-documented." * Jens-Ivar Nergaard, University of Tromso

Indra Overland is Acting Head of the Department of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. He did his PhD at the University of Cambridge and has previously worked for the University of Tromso, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Nordic Research Board. His recent publications include Caspian Energy Politics (co-edited, 2009) and Russian Renewable Energy (co-authored, 2009). Mikkel Berg-Nordlie studied Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Oslo and Russian Studies at the University of Tromso, where he is writing a PhD on Russian Sami politics. He is also a researcher at the Department of International Studies of the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR). His research is focused on indigenous and ethnic minority-related issues - in the Russian North, Siberia and Far East, the Caucasus, Nepal and the Nordic Countries.