Transition from a food extraction to a food producing economy – A Study of Institutional Change in Sami Reindeer husbandry

Abstract

The transition from a foraging to a pastoral economy occurred independently and at different times in numerous aboriginal societies around the world. Among arctic and subarctic reindeer herding peoples in northern Eurasia it manifested, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, in a movement that implied a radical shift in economic focus. People went from living foremost on hunting and gathering, with small numbers of domesticated reindeer mainly for transports, to reindeer pastoralism with large reindeer herds. Although it was a massive transition, rather close to our time, remarkably little is known about what consequences it had on institutions for local governance and social relations for the groups involved.

Northern Fennoscandia was one of the first to witness the transition to reindeer pastoralism, and the indigenous Sami of northern Sweden are an especially suitable case for addressing these gaps. The historical sources are exceptionally rich.

Land used for foraging and by pastoralists are common-pool resources (CPRs): fresh water, hunting grounds, and grazing land. The transition these societies underwent was driven by concomitant self-governed responses to this transition. In the presentation I will outline the transition and present preliminary results on how the transition affected institutions for governance and social relations.