Carl-Gösta Ojala
carl-gosta.ojala@arkeologi.uu.se
My name is Carl-Gösta (C-G) Ojala. I’m a researcher in archaeology at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University. My main research interests include history and heritage in Northern Fennoscandia and northern Russia, Sámi history and archaeology, Russian and Soviet archaeology, histories of archaeology, as well as issues of heritage, identity, nationalism, indigeneity, colonialism, politics, cultural rights and ethics.
I’m currently working with the research project Bronze Age Landscapes in the North: Contacts between Central Sweden and Northern Sweden during the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (2019–2021), together with Karin Ojala. The aim of the project is to examine the relationship between Mälardalen and the northern Swedish coastal regions during the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. A special focus will be on “eastern” objects which have been discovered in central and northern Sweden. Central to the study are questions about regional differences, regional identities and interregional contacts. Another aim is to critically examine the division between North and South in the study of the Bronze Age, as well as other prehistoric periods. Therefore, an important question will be how the images of contacts between the northern Swedish coast and Mälardalen have developed in a research historical perspective.
In recent years, I have worked in two research projects, together with Jonas M. Nordin from the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm and other researchers, focusing on the early modern colonial history in Sápmi, and its legacies today. The first project Collecting Sápmi: Early Modern Globalization of Sámi Material Culture and Sámi Cultural Heritage Today (2014–2018) aims to examine early modern interest in and collecting of Sámi material culture and to follow the movement of Sámi objects between scholars and collectors around Europe. The aim is also to discuss the legacies of the early modern collecting and the importance of the collected objects today, including repatriation and revitalization processes. The second project A Colonial Arena: Landscape, People and Globalization in Inland Northern Sweden in the Early Modern Period (2014–2017) deals with industrialization, mining and missionary campaigns in the Sámi areas in northern Sweden in the 17th and 18th centuries, and colonial history and heritage in Sápmi today. Both projects are funded by the Swedish Research Council.
Read more about the two projects (now completed):
I have also participated in the project Understanding the Cultural Impacts and Issues of Lapland Mining, which is funded by the Academy of Finland (2015–2018; project leader Vesa-Pekka Herva, University of Oulu). This project deals with histories of mining in Northern Fennoscandia, as well as present-day conflicts over mining.
In my research I’m also interested in exploring comparative perspectives on histories of archaeology and concepts of ethnicity, nationalism and indigeneity in the Nordic countries and Russia and the Soviet Union. I was the project leader of the research project Arctic Origins: Archaeology and the Search for the Origins of the Northern Peoples in the East and the West, funded by the Swedish Research Council (2011–2015), which examines the changing views on the origins of the Sámi and other northern populations, and the roles of the northern areas and the northern peoples in the national/imperial archaeological narratives, in the Nordic countries and Russia and the Soviet Union, from the 19th century until today.
In 2009, I finished my doctoral dissertation, Sámi Prehistories: the Politics of Archaeology and Identity in Northernmost Europe, at Uppsala University. The dissertation examines Sámi (pre)history and Sámi archaeology, partly from a research historical perspective, and partly from a more contemporary perspective, dealing with issues of identity politics, cultural heritage and archaeological ethics, such as debates on Sámi heritage management, cultural rights and repatriation of Sámi cultural heritage and reburial of Sámi human remains.
It is possible to read the dissertation in full text online:
Publications
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Archaeology, Politics, and Sámi Heritage
Part of The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions, p. 106-128, 2023.
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Sámi Mobilities in Colonial Spaces and the Right to Make a Home
Part of Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, p. 576-597, 2023.
DOI for Sámi Mobilities in Colonial Spaces and the Right to Make a Home Download full text (pdf) of Sámi Mobilities in Colonial Spaces and the Right to Make a Home
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Indigenous Archaeology
Part of Critical Studies of the Arctic, p. 99-122, 2022.
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Looking east in Swedish archaeology: Envisioning eastern contacts in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age
Part of Oodeja Mikalle: Juhlakirja professori Mika Lavennolle hänen täyttäessään 60 vuotta, p. 121-128, 2022.
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Sammanfattning av rapport om insamling av mänskliga kvarlevor
Part of Ko ihmisarvoa mitathiin: Tornionlaaksolaisitten, kväänitten ja lantalaisitten eksklyteerinki ja assimileerinki : Delbetänkande av Sannings- och försoningskommissionen för tornedalingar, kväner och lantalaiset, p. 111-153, 2022.
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East and West in Sápmi: Borders and identities in Sámi historical archaeology
Part of META - Historiskarkeologisk tidskrift, p. 143-160, 2021.
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An industrial revolution in an Indigenous landscape: The copper extraction of the early modern Torne River valley in its global context
Part of Fennoscandia Archaeologica, p. 61-81, 2020.
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Kolonialt samlande i Sápmi
Part of Historisk Tidskrift, p. 529-542, 2020.
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Mines and missions: Early modern Swedish colonialism in Sápmi and its legacies today
Part of Currents of Saami pasts, p. 160-176, 2020.
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Northern Connections: Interregional Contacts in Bronze Age Northern and Middle Sweden
Part of Open Archaeology, p. 151-171, 2020.
DOI for Northern Connections: Interregional Contacts in Bronze Age Northern and Middle Sweden Download full text (pdf) of Northern Connections: Interregional Contacts in Bronze Age Northern and Middle Sweden
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Colonialism Past and Present:: Archaeological Engagements and Entanglements
Part of The Sound of Silence:, p. 182-201, 2019.
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Collecting, Connecting, Constructing: Early modern commodification and globalization of Sámi material culture
Part of Journal of material culture, p. 58-82, 2018.
DOI for Collecting, Connecting, Constructing: Early modern commodification and globalization of Sámi material culture Download full text (pdf) of Collecting, Connecting, Constructing: Early modern commodification and globalization of Sámi material culture
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Encountering "the Other" in the North: Colonial histories in early modern northern Sweden
Part of Facing Otherness in Early Modern Sweden, p. 209-228, 2018.
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Modernization on the Northern Fringe of Europe: The Historical Archaeology of Early Modern Sweden
Part of The Oxford Handbook of Historical Archaeology, 2018.
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Att samla Sápmi: tidigmodern insamling av samisk materiell kultur och det samiska kulturarvet i dag
Part of Uppsala mitt i Sápmi - Sábme - Saepmie II, p. 25-28, 2017.
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Contested colonial history and heritage in Sápmi: archaeology, indigeneity and local communities in northern Sweden
Part of Archaeologies of "Us" and "Them": Debating History, Heritage and Indigeneity, p. 258-271, 2017.
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Copper Worlds: A historical archaeology of Abraham and Jakob Momma-Reenstierna and their industrial enterprise in the Torne River Valley, c. 1650-1680
Part of Acta Borealia, p. 103-133, 2017.
DOI for Copper Worlds: A historical archaeology of Abraham and Jakob Momma-Reenstierna and their industrial enterprise in the Torne River Valley, c. 1650-1680 Download full text (pdf) of Copper Worlds: A historical archaeology of Abraham and Jakob Momma-Reenstierna and their industrial enterprise in the Torne River Valley, c. 1650-1680
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Heritage and indigenous rights
Part of Archaeologies of "Us" and "Them": Debating History, Heritage and Indigeneity, p. 195-198, 2017.
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Introduction
Part of Archaeologies of "Us" and "Them": Debating History, Heritage and Indigeneity, p. 1-13, 2017.
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Sámi archaeology in a global perspective:: heritage, indigeneity and politics
Part of Fennoscandia Archaeologica, p. 122-126, 2017.
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Svenska kyrkan och samiska mänskliga kvarlevor
Part of De historiska relationerna mellan Svenska kyrkan och samerna, p. 993-1028, 2016.
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Collecting Sápmi: Early modern collecting of Sámi material culture
Part of Nordisk Museologi, p. 114-122, 2015.
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Collecting Sápmi: Early modern collecting of Sámi material culture
Part of Nordisk Museologi, p. 114-122, 2015.
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Sápmis koloniala historia
Part of Uppsala Nya Tidning, 2015.
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East and West, North and South in Sápmi - Networks and Boundaries in Sámi Archaeology in Sweden
Part of Sounds Like Theory, p. 173-185, 2014.
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Leo S. Klejn: Soviet Archaeology: Trends, Schools, and History
Part of Norwegian Archaeological Review, p. 108-110, 2014.
DOI for Leo S. Klejn: Soviet Archaeology: Trends, Schools, and History
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Soviet Archaeology: Trends, Schools, and History
Part of Norwegian Archaeological Review, p. 108-110, 2014.
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Mellan Öst och Väst: Arkeologisk forskning och gränser då och nu
Part of Institutionens historier, p. 129-140, 2013.
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Anders Wepsäläinen, Stalotomterna - en kritisk granskning av forskningsläget rörande en omdiskuterad fornlämningstyp
Part of Svenska landsmål och svenskt folkliv, p. 156-159, 2012.
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Samisk förhistoria och samisk arkeologi i Sverige - i går, i dag och i framtiden?
Part of Uppsala mitt i Sápmi, p. 13-21, 2012.
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Challenging archaeology? Some comments on the repatriation and reburial debates
Part of Archaeology of Indigenous Peoples in the North, p. 51-71, 2011.
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Arkeologisk etik och återförandefrågan - diskussioner i Sverige
Part of Muinaistutkija, p. 37-50, 2010.
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Etik i tiden? Utmaningar och möjligheter för arkeologin
Part of Gäller vanligt folkvett också för akademiker?, p. 24-31, 2010.
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Ojala, Carl-Gösta
Sámi Prehistories: The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in Northernmost Europe
2009.
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Etnicitet... och sedan? Identitet, etnicitet och arkeologi i nordligaste Europa
Part of Etnicitet och arkeologi, p. 101-118, 2008.
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Mapping the North: ethnicities, territories and the networks of archaeology
Part of Current Swedish Archaeology, 2006.
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Saami archaeology in Sweden and Swedish archaeology in Sápmi: boundaries and networks in archaeological research
Part of People, material culture and environment in the North, p. 33-41, 2006.