Arla Magga

Arla Magga works as a doctoral researcher at the Giellagas Institute, University of Oulu, as part of a transdisciplinary Frontiers of Arctic and Global Resilience (FRONT) research program, focusing on community aspects of Indigenous Saami people. In her research, Magga is interested in the material and affective elements of Saami crafts (Sámi duodji in Northern Saami). The aim of her research is to explore how Saami objects and materials generate and shape affective forces and relationships with people and places in various temporalities. Magga is intrigued by both affect and Indigenous theories combined with Saami handicraft research. Saami’s material culture has been subject to great changes over the last hundred years. Modernisation and relocation of Saami children to residential schools, among other things, have led to a decline in craft skills. It is still passed from one generation to another in families and revived especially in communal working in duodji courses.