Keyword – Sámi

Tamás, Ildikó:

Minority identity in a global context

This paper looks into how an emblematic element of Sámi identity is transformed from offline discourses into online folklore and how younger generations use the traditional cultural elements to represent their identity besides the textual multilingualism on social media. It focuses on the content of two Instagram profiles and provides an ethnographic insight into the ethnic-based online discourse that these represent. The repetitive topic of the Instagram posts is the relation to the freezing Arctic winter, which—as a biological and cultural phenomenon—is fit to articulate ethnic differences between the indigenous and the ‘foreign’ peoples. This opposition generates humorous contents that sometimes cross the boundary between political correctness and incorrectness. It also illustrates how oral folklore may conquer contemporary registers and how it survives in the latest modern forms of online communication.

Keywords: cold tolerance, identity, Instagram, meme, Sámi