Arctic Humanimals and the War. A multispecies history of Sápmi during World War II

This project’s purpose is to develop a better understanding of human-animal relations in the European Arctic from 1940 to 1945. It aims to create new, historical knowledge of this insufficiently researched subject area.

It also seeks to further the methodological discussion in historical human-animal studies and to develop an integrative multispecies dimension in the historiography of World War II in Sápmi, the Sámi cultural area spanning from Norway in the west to the Russian Kola-peninsula in the east. The three-year project comprises qualitative archival research informed by theories of human-animal studies.

The first project year will be spent at Luleå University of Technology and involve research in the archives of the ‘Lapp Administration’ in Sweden and Norway, as well as other archives.

This work will continue during the following six-months-stay at the University of Oulu, where a qualitative study including a field visit of Kilpisjärvi, a former German fortification line, will be carried out.

The remaining one and a half years will be spent at the Nordeuropa-Institute at Humboldt University Berlin, to conduct archival research at among others the German Military Archive and the German Diary Archive.

This research is highly significant as it offers a new, integrative study across species and nationalities – including German and Nordic sources - and ventures beyond traditional anthropocentric approaches in historical research.