TRUCOM

The project "Truth and Reconciliation in a Democratic Welfare State: The Indigenous Sami, the Kven/Norwegian Finns Minority and the Majority in Norway (TRUCOM) (2020-2024)" aimed to research how Norway, a well-established democratic state, by establishing the Commission to Investigate Norwegianization Policy and Injustice towards the Sami, Kvens, and Norwegian Finns (Truth and Reconciliation Commission), attempts to address the effects of a prolonged policy of Norwegianization targeted at the Sami as indigenous people and the national minority group of Kvens/Norwegian Finns. The Commission later included the Forest Finnish minority in its work. It was the desire of the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) for accompanying research, as stated in the Storting's decision on the commission's mandate, that inspired an application for research funding for the TRUCOM project. The TRUCOM project provided an opportunity to research how a truth and reconciliation commission can contribute to uncovering the relationship between state assimilation policies and the injustices such policies can inflict on indigenous and national minorities.

The main question of the project was: How and in what ways will the Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission lay the groundwork for truth and reconciliation between the Sami and the Kven/Norwegian Finns on one side, and the majority population on the other? The question has been answered as planned and coincided with three stages of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: (1) its origin, (2) its activities, and (3) its report and recommendations. This has been done through studying the preparatory work in connection with the drafting of the mandate, how the commission established by the Norwegian Parliament in 2018 interpreted and implemented its mandate, and how this was expressed in the commission's report presented on June 1, 2023.

The project consisted of three work packages. In Work Package 1, we asked why the commission was established and why the mandate was designed as it was. In this work package, Skaar (2023) looked at how the Norwegian commission fits into a global context of truth commissions, Skaar (forthcoming) examined the Nordic truth commissions as a new model for resolving historical and ongoing breaches of indigenous rights, while Skaar and Spitzer (2024) conducted a comparative analysis of trust between the Canadian and Norwegian truth and reconciliation commissions. Additionally, the project granted a master's scholarship where the topic was the consultations that the Norwegian Parliament had with the Sami Parliament and the Kven/Norwegian Finnish organizations about the proposal for the mandate. This master's thesis has provided important knowledge about the demands and expectations that were raised in this process, and which were incorporated into the final mandate (Habbestad 2023).

Work Package 2 focused on the commission's activities. The purpose of this work package was to look at the expectations of the truth commission, how various interest groups/stakeholders mobilized around issues that the TRC would address, how this mobilization in turn could influence the work of the TRC, and how the work/operations of the TRC strengthened its stated main goal of "truth and reconciliation". To answer these, extensive data collection was conducted throughout the project period. Interviews were conducted with key actors in the commission's institutional and organizational environment. The project also had daily media monitoring, five surveys were conducted, and documents were collected from the commission's open archive, from the Sami Parliament and the Norwegian Parliament, and other relevant institutions. However, it turned out that the relationship between the commission and its surroundings could not be explored due to a methodological challenge related to the commission's decision that its members, except for the leader, would not be interviewed by the project. This resulted in insufficient insight into the commission's own choices and assessments during its work period, and how such commissions can be in dialogue with their target groups. Nevertheless, the project gained insight into these conditions by following the commission members' statements at open meetings and in the media. Consequently, the commission's report became an even more important source for identifying the choices the commission made. This work package resulted in five peer-reviewed articles. Olsen (forthcoming) discussed the differences between north and south in media interest in the commission's work and looked at the press coverage of local meetings in terms of which issues were and were not further communicated. Mathisen (2022) looked at how people's stories to the commission in open meetings were interpreted and discussed what happens when the context changes from private rooms to public scrutiny. Broderstad and Josefsen (2023) examined how the commission utilized the scope of action provided by its mandate in terms of outward activity and engagement. They concluded that there is a difference between the expectations arising from the mandate and the actual public engagement of the commission. In an upcoming article, Broderstad and Josefsen (forthcoming) have based their discussion on the commission's ethical guidelines for archiving the commission's materials after its work was completed, discussing the quality and ethics related to the reuse of the material, as well as ownership and access to this interview material. The authors also wrote a column on forskersonen.no (09.10.2023) about the management of this interview material from a research ethics perspective. This formed the basis for a statement from NESH dated 14.10.2024, that is, two weeks after the TRUCOM project concluded.

Work Package 3 looked at the commission's findings and recommendations as presented in the commission's 2023 report. This work package also examined how the report was disseminated and how the recommendations provided in the report laid the groundwork for "truth and reconciliation." The report has been analyzed in three articles. Josefsen, Broderstad, and Hernes (2023) discuss in a scholarly essay how the report responds to its mission, including the investigative element in its work, the commission's concept of reconciliation, and the proposed measures. Skogerbø, Habbestad, Fjærli, and Josefsen (forthcoming) examine the Norwegian media coverage of the commission's work, with particular emphasis on the delivery of the report itself, as well as how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission communicated with the media and how this affected the media coverage. Josefsen and Broderstad (forthcoming) take a closer look at the commission's determination of the endpoint for the state's Norwegianization policy to 1963 and raise questions about what policy towards the Sami was possibly concluded that year, and the substance of these changes. In June 2024, Josefsen and Broderstad also visited the Canadian National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg, Manitoba. At the same time, they visited the Indigenous Reconciliation Secretariat at the provincial authorities and other organizations and institutions in Winnipeg and Ottawa, to learn about the follow-up work on truth and reconciliation.

Since TRUCOM researched the commission's work concurrently with the commission's operations, dissemination throughout the project period was a priority. This has occurred through both Norwegian and English language articles, as well as through popular science publications, conference contributions, media interviews, media columns, and two webinars (see https://uit.no/project/trucom_no/publications). In total, four peer-reviewed articles and one scholarly essay have been published during the period, while five peer-reviewed articles are under publication. Four of the articles are written in Norwegian and six in English. Contributions from one of the webinars are published in the Center for Sami Studies, UiT's publication series (Josefsen, Hernes, Skaar, Mathisen, Olsen, and Broderstad 2023). On October 16-17, 2023, TRUCOM organized the international conference Truth and Reconciliation processes in stable Democratic States - who, how, and what happens after? in Tromsø. The conference was organized in collaboration with the Canadian embassy and had over 80 participants from home and abroad. Professor Ronald Niezen was the keynote speaker at the conference.

The project was led by UiT The Arctic University of Norway and was carried out in collaboration with the Christian Michelsen Institute, and had a reference group consisting of members from Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. TRUCOM collaborated with Digsscore, University of Bergen, which conducted the project's surveys. TRUCOM has employed a research assistant during the period 2022-2024 who has handled administrative tasks, the systematization of both qualitative and quantitative data, and been co-writer on one of the reviewed articles (Skogerbø et.al. forthcoming).

The project was conducted according to the project description, but COVID-19 caused some delays in the research, and an extension of the project period was requested. This also meant that interview data were largely collected digitally instead of at physical meeting points, which freed up work capacity while financial expenditure was somewhat lower than budgeted. The TRUCOM project was funded by the Research Council of Norway.