The Craft of Belonging: Material Culture and Social Boundaries in Sápmi

The Craft of Belonging explores the role of craft and its mediation of social boundaries, particularly in communities that are under state pressure.Anthropologists Matthew Magnani and Natalia Magnani blend anthropology and archaeology to explore the role of craft in community-making from prehistory to present with the Sámi, the Indigenous peoples of Northern Europe.Sápmi, the Sámi homeland, has sat at a material crossroads for millennia.Forests, tundras, and extended social networks offered raw materials autochthonous and imported.Wood, antler, cloth, and silver were crafted to cope with Arctic climates and state incursions.Integrating archaeological, ethnographic and Indigenous perspectives to reveal the transformative nature of material culture, The Craft of Belonging shows how long-term perspectives accentuate the shifting meanings and malleability of material social boundaries.Local agencies intersect with changing trade networks, colonialism and climate change, to resonate through