Morgan Oftedal
About
Pronouns: she/her or they/them
Non-Saami member of Team Saepmie and Sami Interest Group NTNU. Participated in the coordinating committee for Sami February Month 2026.
My field of interest is primarily the period 1860–1945, which I consider vital in shaping history up to the present. I am especially interested in radical and authoritarian tendencies in this period, and their interplay with colonial structures. My academic field is primarily Saami history, as it is located at the intersection of these interests.
I approach my work from a structural perspective, understanding structures to be social patterns formed in the interplay between historical agents. These patterns in turn shape the agents’ actions. I am particularly interested in settler colonial theory, as I hold it can highlight important aspects of Saami history if applied in a nuanced way. I have looked closer at this issue in an article for the Norwegian Historisk tidsskrift which won the 2026 HT prize.
My project is about the Lapp bailiffs who served under the Trööndelage/Trøndelag counties in the period 1894–1920. This institution is under-researched in Norwegian history, despite its important role in the emerging control regime over Saami society established in this tumultuous time. Earlier research has emphasized the Lapp bailiff’s varying role depending on who held the office. My approach is to see how the different holders practiced the office, to then decide if it truly was as personally variable as previously assumed. My provisional conclusion is that the bailiffs served as a policing institution for Saami matters. When enforcing those parts of the law arbitrarily restricting Saami mobility, the bailiffs reinforced settler colonial displacement of both Saami people living outside officially defined Reindeer Herding Districts, and those who had Swedish citizenship. Simultaneously they mitigated the logic of elimination within Reindeer Herding Districts by serving as an official authority which could mediate on behalf of law-abiding Saami people. Seeking control rather than elimination of an indigenous people, the Lapp bailiffs appear in this regard to have been more a paternalistic colonial authority than a purely settler colonial one.
My Master’s thesis interpreted Saujj-Va'rjjel/Sør-Varanger's history before the Second World War from a settler colonial perspective. I explored the border agreement between Norway and Russia in 1826, the municipality’s demographic history and its resource conflicts, A/S Sydvaranger’s planned hydropower projects and the Secret Border Committee of 1919.
Competencies
Publications
2025
-
Hermanstrand, Håkon;
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
sørsamer – Store norske leksikon.
Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven)
Popular science article
-
Skogvang, Susann Funderud;
Ravna, Øyvind;
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
reindriftsloven – Store norske leksikon.
Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven)
Popular science article
-
Ravna, Øyvind;
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
reindriftsagronom – Store norske leksikon.
Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven)
Popular science article
-
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
lappefogd – Store norske leksikon.
Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven)
Popular science article
-
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
Samisk historie og settlerkolonialisme. Nordisk bruk av et kontroversielt begrep.
Historisk tidsskrift
Academic article
2022
-
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2022)
«Nu växer staden med amerikansk fart» – Settlerkolonialisme i Sør-Varanger fram til andre verdenskrig.
Universitetet i Bergen
Master thesis
Journal publications
-
Hermanstrand, Håkon;
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
sørsamer – Store norske leksikon.
Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven)
Popular science article
-
Skogvang, Susann Funderud;
Ravna, Øyvind;
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
reindriftsloven – Store norske leksikon.
Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven)
Popular science article
-
Ravna, Øyvind;
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
reindriftsagronom – Store norske leksikon.
Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven)
Popular science article
-
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
lappefogd – Store norske leksikon.
Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven)
Popular science article
-
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2025)
Samisk historie og settlerkolonialisme. Nordisk bruk av et kontroversielt begrep.
Historisk tidsskrift
Academic article
Student thesis or dissertation
-
Oftedal, Morgan.
(2022)
«Nu växer staden med amerikansk fart» – Settlerkolonialisme i Sør-Varanger fram til andre verdenskrig.
Universitetet i Bergen
Master thesis
Teaching
Spring 2026 I teach in HIST1505 Introduction to Historical Theory and Methods with responsibility for group lessons on Mondays. In the same course I have a lecture about methodological, theoretical and ethical questions connected to South Saami historiography.
Outreach
2026
-
LectureOftedal, Morgan; Danielsen, Anna-Laila; Njåstad, Magne; Hagen, Maia Kristin Glein; Danielsen, Mattis. (2026) Workshop for studenter – Urfolkshistorie, kolonialisme og avkolonisering. Samisk februarmåned
2025
-
Conference lectureOftedal, Morgan. (2025) Colonizing Indigenous Transnationality: Saami Reindeer Husbandry Management in the ‘Southern Lapp District,’ 1894–1904. Svenska ekonomisk-historiska mötet
-
LectureOftedal, Morgan. (2025) Kontrollregimet opprettes. Lappefogdenes forvaltning av sørsamisk reindrift på norsk side, 1894–1904. Raasten rastah
-
Conference lectureOftedal, Morgan; Ryymin, Teemu; Andresen, Astri; Johnsen, Tore. (2025) Samisk historie og kolonialisme. Norske historiedager
-
Conference lectureOftedal, Morgan. (2025) Kontrollregimet. Opprinnelsen til lappefogdene i Norge. Sørsamisk historieseminar
-
Conference lectureOftedal, Morgan. (2025) Lappefogdens tidlige historie i Norge. Sydsamisk historia. Vad vi vet och vägen framåt mot ny kunskap
2022
-
Interview