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B od ies and Transformati on
‘Affective Indigeneity: Queering ecology and Sámi authenticity in Sweden’s Got Talent’ Katariina Kyrölä (University of Turku, Finland) In 2014, Jon Henrik Fjällgren won the reality TV format contest Sweden’s Got Talent with a joik (traditional Sámi song style) performance. Fjällgren, who was adopted to a Swedish Sámi family from Colombia as a baby, performed the self-composed joik in traditional Sámi costume. His performance raised a lot of online commentary and debate around the validity of his Sámi identity. Fjällgren’s winning joik performances, composed in memory of his passed-away male friend, were widely praised as deeply moving, which further raises questions about affective intensities in performing indigeneity. In the paper, I ask how native authenticity, nature and affect connect to sexuality and kinship in the online circulation of the performance and its online reception. How are relations of affective immersion and recognition or belonging forged in such encounters? Drawing on the perspective of queer ecologies, I consider how gender, sexuality and indigeneity could be considered here in ways that center relations of place, space, nature and technologies instead of the human subject – on which debates about native authenticity often focus on. The paper is a part of the broader research project that analyzes contemporary Nordic popular cultural imagery of the Sámi by intertwining indigenous feminisms, queer ecologies and indigenous media studies. Dr. Katariina Kyrölä is Lecturer at Media Studies, University of Turku, Finland. She held the position of Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher in 2013– 2015, and worked as Lecturer and Researcher at Cinema Studies, Stockholm University in 2010–2013. She has done research in the areas of affect theory, feminist fat studies, porn studies, and queer theory, and her work has been published in e.g. International Journal of Cultural Studies, Sexualities, Lambda Nordica (Nordic Journal of LGBTQ Studies), and Feminist Theory (forthcoming). She is the author of The Weight of Images: Affect, Body Image and Fat in the Media (2014, Ashgate). Currently she is launching a research project on queer indigenous studies and images of Sámi in contemporary Nordic popular culture.
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