Establishing authenticity and commodifying difference: a social semiotic analysis of Sámi jeans

Introduction

This article shows some of the ways in which material culture can contribute to expressing and constructing difference in a globalizing world. The aim is to explore globalization and local difference as refracted through designer jeans, focusing specifically on the semiotic construction of authenticity of the Swedish brand, Sarva. The decision to focus on jeans is prompted by the fact that they are ‘simultaneously extremely personal and extremely ubiquitous’ (Miller and Woodward, 2011: 6). Decisions about what to wear and what clothes to buy are semiotically regimented practices (Van Leeuwen, 2005) and are often characterized by anxiety (Woodward, 2007). From an anthropological perspective, Keet (2011) explicates that such anxiety pertains to the act of balancing between conformity and standing out as an individual and to the expected social responses to one’s appearance. The will to ‘stand out’ without too much deviation accounts for designer jeans in particular. Designer jeans are perhaps the icon of an ‘Americanized’ and generic global fashion that profits from discourses of genuineness and authenticity. Accordingly, Keet sees ‘authenticity anxiety’ as fuelling the branding of designer jeans. Traditionally, such anxiety has been treated by means of branding narratives about American craftmanship and the work-wear heritage of mine workers and cowboys, but also with references to American pop culture icons such as Marilyn Monroe and James Dean (see, for instance, Fredbäck et al., 2014, as an example of this). Today, however, the production of high-end jeans is no longer unique to the US, but also to Japan, and jeans are designed and manufactured with global authenticity claims in such diverse countries as Sweden and South Africa. Many of these novel brands follow characteristic production techniques that have provenance in American jeans production of the early 20th century. Such techniques include, amongst others: the weaving of denim fabric on specific old shuttle looms to create the characteristic non-frayed selvedge; the use of indigo colour; the thickness of the garment; hidden rivets and back pocket stitching; and also, a ‘classic’ and ‘timeless’ fit of the jeans.

In their seminal work on jeans as a global commodity, Miller and Woodward (2011) identify heritage and origin as key resources for the profiling and distinction of brands of designer jeans, and observe that the hunt for the perfect pair is key for jeans-buying behaviour. In order to stand out globally and to offer a garment with the potential to abate the ‘authenticity anxiety’, novel designer brands reinvent and relocate authenticity semiotically without deviating too much from the heritage of iconic denim manufacturing, design and narration. Bearing these considerations in mind, this article interrogates what Aiello and Dickinson (2014: 305) have labelled the ‘dialectic between homogenization and heterogenization’. We explore how the Swedish brand Sarva reinvents and relocates denim authenticity by marketing their jeans as Sámi: that is, as an instantiation of the culture of the indigenous people inhabiting the northern parts of Scandinavia. Accordingly, this study contributes to explorations of how semiotic resources are employed to enable the balance between authentic differentiation and global mobility. This is an existential semiotic matter since, as Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes (2011) argue, a commodity that is not differentiated as sufficiently authentic will not have the potential to stand out. However, a commodity that ‘goes too far’ in the authentication design might end up not being mobile enough, but rather in need of explanation and legitimation; in other words, failing to adhere to a relevant global conformity.

Authenticity is understood here as a discursive practice. We acknowledge jeans as a semiotic assemblage (see Bouvier, 2016, 2018; Owyong, 2009) and explore how authentication is accomplished within the garment and in the accompanying texts. In order to grapple with this, we look at the recontextualization of difference (Aiello and Pauwels, 2014) in relation to historical trajectories of meaning making where there is a salient provenance (Archer and Björkvall, 2018; Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001; Westberg and Årman, 2019) in Sáminess as well as in the global origin of high-end jeans. In order to capture not only symbolic but also ‘emplaced and embodied claims of difference’ (Aiello and Dickinson, 2014: 306), we focus on the affordances – the meaning-making possibilities and restraints (Björkvall, 2018; Gibson, 1977; Kress, 2010) – of different semiotic materials for the rendering of authenticity. By looking at how resources with different provenance and affordances are merged in and around the jeans, this article continues the scholarly discussion on how authenticity can be relocated and reinvented in ways that allow commodities, ideologies, identities, genres and discourses to travel between the local and the global (see, e.g., Aiello and Dickinson, 2014; Aiello and Pauwels, 2014; Chen and Machin, 2014; Johnson and Carneiro, 2014; Thurlow and Aiello, 2007).

In the next section, we outline the ongoing global phenomena of commodification of indigenous cultures, focusing on the context of Sámi in particular.

Commodifying the ‘Indigenous’ on a Global(Ized) Market

From the perspective of visual communication studies, it has been revealed that the semioscape of capitalism, the ‘globalizing circulation of symbols, sign systems and meaning-making practices’ (Thurlow and Aiello, 2007: 308), is characterized by homogenization, semiotic conformity and stylization (Aiello and Dickinson, 2014; Chen and Machin, 2014; Machin, 2004). Yet, within this semioscape, cultural and social difference are key resources to mobilize ‘symbolic and material profit in global(izing) communication contexts’ (Aiello and Pauwels, 2014: 277). It has accordingly been elucidated by a number of studies on tourism discourse how late modernity and its ‘new economy’ go hand in hand with the commodification of specific cultures, particularly indigenous groups and linguistic minorities (see Coupland et al., 2005; Dlaske, 2014, 2015; Heller, 2003; Kauppinen, 2014; Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes, 2011). Heller and Duchêne (2012: 1) label this as a discursive process ‘from pride to profit’: where the discourse of pride emphasizes ‘rights, identity, cultural and linguistic preservation’, the discourse of profit reinvents cultural and linguistic minorities as economic resources. However, this shift is not straightforward, but rather a process where discourses of pride and profit co-exist, negotiate, blend and set up a dialogue with each other.

The reorientation from pride to profit goes hand in hand with the booming of authenticity ‘in the niche marketing of the new economy’ (Dlaske, 2015: 245), and has led to an overall commodification of the Sámi. The Sámi, numbering approximately 80,000–100,000, are the only officially recognized indigenous people in the European Union, and the traditional residential Sámi area (Sápmi) covers the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. The history of the Sámi, in line with that of many other indigenous groups, is characterized by colonial dominance, racism, segregation and marginalization as well as assimilation (Lantto and Mörkenstam, 2008; Mörkenstam, 2014). The Sámi way of living is traditionally connected to nature and mobility due to a nomadic livelihood of reindeer herding, hunting and fishing, and seasonal movement. ¹ The cultural inheritance furthermore includes the art of making Sámi handicraft from natural materials, called Duodji, and the Sámi languages, of which there are nine varieties.

Alongside discourses of pride, discourses of profit abound in Sweden. It is possible, for instance, to get ‘Sámi spa treatments’ ² and to buy contemporary clothes ‘design[ed] by Sámis, for Sámi people and equally cool souls’ ³ as well as to experience the ‘slow-food’ and cooking traditions of the Sámi, ⁴ and to experience Sápmi and the Sámi within the heritage tourism industry. ⁵ In light of this, the jeans brand, Sarva, is not unique in its authenticating practices, but rather taps into these practices. The brand Sarva was founded by two Sámi brothers and is in part run as a family business. ⁶ Despite the founders’ Sámi background, Sarva only claims their jeans to be ‘Sámi related’ and ‘inspired by the Sámi culture’, ⁷ but not to be Sámi handicraft (Duodji). In order to qualify as Duodji, the artisan or designer has to apply for a certificate issued by the Sámi handicraft foundation (Sameslöjdstiftelsen Sámi Duodji). This verifies that the artefact is produced out of traditional materials (such as reindeer leather, bone and tendons; wood, bark and tree roots; silver) and is handcrafted by traditional Sámi techniques (e.g. sewing by hand and woodcarving). ⁸ The certification process could be seen as a way of maintaining and preserving the pride discourse from being completely absorbed by the profit discourse.

While not claiming to be Duodji, Sarva still claims ‘Sáminess’, which implies that ‘authenticity’ is a matter of semiotic representation and not (only) a matter of genealogy and inheritance. This social semiotic approach is elaborated on in the next section.

A Social Semiotic Approach to ‘Authenticity’

On the global marketplace and across the broader field of branding, ‘authenticity’ has become key to a product’s marketing. Authenticity is integral to consumer trust and relates to ‘an idea of truthfulness and a sense that something can be verified as what it purports to be’ (Newman and Smith, in Barnes, 2017: 172). Authenticity has ‘developed from its original use as a reassurance to customers “of a genuine article” to a marketing descriptor that imbues a “set of values that differentiate it from other more commercialized brands”’ (Beaverland et al., in Barnes, 2017: 172). Global marketing success thus hinges on the ability to construe a brand or commodity as different, ‘but only insofar as this is a highly structured (and possibly sanitized) endeavour for the achievement of globalist ends’ (Aiello and Pauwels, 2014: 278). In line with this, authenticity is understood here as a fundamentally semiotic phenomenon rather than as a pre-discursive or inherent property in artefacts. Thus, the analysis focuses on the recontextualization of difference (Aiello and Pauwels, 2014) and authentication (Heller, 2011: 27–28). Accordingly, the objective is not to debunk Sarva as ‘fake-Sámi’ or as a case of inauthentic kitsch, but to explore what kind of authenticity Sarva reproduces and how, within discourses of profit.

Bearing these considerations in mind, authenticity is always situated in a particular communicative event and is thus subject to change and to different interpretations according to the targeted audience(s). This implies that different semantic properties and frames might be invoked in varied settings in order to render authenticity in relation to a range of themes, people and places. For the purpose of this study, the analysis is demarcated to a set of semantic resources for the identification of how Sarva balance homogenization and heterogenization within the global denim market, namely the balance between ‘historicity’, ‘localness’ and ‘locality’.

As heritage and origin are crucial for the profiling of designer jeans brands and since the emphasis on such values can be seen as a symptom of a ‘disease of nostalgia’ (Coupland et al., 2005), we explore the trope of ‘historicity’. Values of ‘having survived’ and ‘having history on their side’ are typically ascribed to phenomena that are signified as authentic (Coupland et al., 2005: 207). We also identify ‘closeness to the culture or place’ as a key semantic resource for profiting from minority groups. ‘Localness’, or implied closeness, can be semiotically achieved through representations of particular places and cultures and the connotations of such representations (Dlaske, 2015).

The interconnectivity between authenticity and the local has been extensively discussed by Aiello and Dickinson (2014). They apply a material–semiotic perspective and use ‘locality’ to conceptualize not the connoted sense of the ‘localness’, but rather the ‘emplaced and embodied claims of difference’ (p. 306). ‘Locality’ refers to how artefacts and materials situate human bodies in concrete material worlds so that the immediate locality is prompted on them. For instance, Aiello and Dickinson observe how table designs are used by Starbucks in their store design to situate guests in ways that prompt an embodied sense of ‘community’. Similarly, we look at how the material resources of jeans achieve tangible and embodied possibilities to experience ‘authenticity’. ‘Locality’ and ‘localness’ thus respond to how ‘closeness to the culture or place’ can be achieved in a complementary manner. This distinction informs the present analysis of how different kinds of semiotic resources have the potential to perform different kinds of authenticating work.

We use social semiotic multimodal analysis to focus on how authenticity is constructed through the use of semiotic resources. Semiotic resources refer to the resources we use to make meaning or ‘the actions and artefacts we use to communicate’ (Van Leeuwen, 2005: 3). From the perspective of social semiotics, the concepts of provenance and affordance are employed to investigate how the jeans are authenticated with reference to ‘historicity’ and ‘localness’ as well as ‘locality’. Provenance concerns connotational meaning potential and how ‘mythical signifieds’ are recontextualized from ‘some other domain (some other place, time, social group, culture) and are used to signify a complex of ideas and values which are associated with that “other” domain’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001: 72). In other words, provenance concerns where recontextualized elements in texts come from, which could be historical or contemporary, and can include places as well as practices, discourses or particular genres. The historicity of blue jeans is the heavy-duty trousers for miners, lumberjacks and slaves that were originally produced by Levi Strauss in New York during the mid-19th century. Blue jeans could thus have provenance in ‘an imaginary identification with American cowboys and pioneers, a preference for simplicity and functionality, a choice of equality and against class society, or a rebellion against the constrictions of traditional bourgeois dress and the values associated with them’ (Djonov and Van Leeuwen, 2011: 546). This is just one possible signification, but the concept of provenance allows us to trace the multiple ways in which ‘localness’ and ‘historicity’ are recontextualized as signifiers of difference in Sarva’s authenticating work.

In addition, the concept of affordance is employed. Affordance was originally phrased by Gibson (1977) as the possibilities and restraints that humans can (visually) perceive in their environment. It was extended by Kress (2010) to cover the kinds of gains and losses that come from selecting one mode of communication over another. Here, we employ the concept to look at how different semiotic materials give privilege to different kinds of authenticities. Since the concept highlights material properties, we primarily use it to investigate how resources in the jeans operate as ‘emplaced and embodied claims of difference’.

Authenticity can be established through discourses both ‘in’ and ‘around’ a commodified artefact (Archer and Björkvall, 2019). We understand discourses to be ‘socially constructed knowledges of (some aspect of) reality which give expression to the meanings and values of an institution or social grouping’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001: 4). Discourses ‘in’ refer to the discourses suggested by the materials and the design of the artefact, which can pertain to historicity and localness as well as to locality. Discourses ‘around’ or ‘metadiscourses’ (Aiello and Dickinson, 2014) refer to those not explicitly present in the artefact, but in other texts or practices that contribute to the realization of key meaning potentials of the artefact, to the ‘authenticating “stories” which form the core of the exercise of branding’ (Keet, 2011: 55). In the analysis, we look at how difference is recontextualized ‘in’ and ‘around’ the jeans through particular resources. This allows us to show how different kinds of semiotic resources recontextualize difference in Sarva’s balancing act between homogenization and heterogenization.

Authenticating Designer Jeans

Keet (2011) highlights the perceived ‘authenticity’ of ‘new vintage’ jeans in Japan by focusing on material markers and traces of the material processes of production of the jeans. The material markers of authenticity include fabric quality, fabric colour, the presence of the selvedge, the fit, distressing patterns, labels, techniques of stitching, hidden rivets, fading, fraying and tears. Softness is often seen as a signifier of authenticity, as soft and worn-in jeans can usually only be achieved through the passage of time. The material processes of authenticity include the types of sewing machines used, pre-washing processes, use of indigo colour, use of old shuttle looms that produce a selvedge (an edge that is not frayed). At times, the ‘physicality of the final jeans product was not always as important as the mechanisms by which it was created’ (Keet, 2011: 46). It is however important to note that ‘authenticity’ can be perceived differently by different groups of people. Keet, for instance, notes that, in Japan, ‘authenticity’ may not lie in a direct correspondence to the ‘real thing’, but can also be experienced through ‘faithful replication’ (p. 47). As with any kind of value judgement, subjective interpretations are not consistent across a broad range of consumers and one person’s authentic can be another’s fake. One can also consider ‘moral authenticity’ as involving a moral judgement on the part of the consumer – that traditional craft processes and small-scale artisanal production are superior to mass-produced items (Barnes, 2017: 172). In the analysis of the authenticating work performed by Sarva, we focus on their flagship model Riekte. The analysis focuses on how different semiotic resources construct authenticity, examining weight, material and texture, iconography and language. Figure 1 depicts the jeans as they are represented on Sarva’s web-shop.

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Figure 1.

Riekte Sami Selvedge, product description from Sarva’s web shop. © Sarva. Reproduced with permission.

Material and texture as semiotic resources

The choice of material communicates ideas and values. Sarva indicates the Japanese origin of the denim fabric in the web-shop as well on an accompanying tag (Figure 2). The authenticating potential here points to Japan as the centre of contemporary high-end jeans production.

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Figure 2.

Indexed Japanese provenance. © Photographs: Arlene Archer.

The metadiscourse around the fabric evokes both ‘localness’ and ‘historicity’ as authenticating resources, yet the denim also suggests authenticity through its texture. The term ‘texture’ originally referred to the art of weaving and the qualities of woven materials (the production process by ‘narrow shuttle looms’ is also pointed to in the tag), but gradually has expanded to encompass the tactile, material quality of objects generally and the synaesthetic interaction of tactile and visual aspects (Djonov and Van Leeuwen, 2011: 553). The characteristics of the texture of the denim material can be both seen and felt. It is tightly woven, stiff, opaque, dense and ‘grained’ (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3.

Close-up of denim texture. © Photograph: Arlene Archer.

Djonov and Van Leeuwen (2011) map the meaning potential of texture as a semiotic resource. They propose a number of qualities to describe texture, of which rigidity and density are useful for looking at the Sarva jeans. The texture of the denim fabric is hard and grainy as opposed to soft (see Bouvier, 2018: 198) and dense as opposed to sparse (it has a higher number of threads than other materials). Higher density makes a fabric more durable and prevents it from intrusive material. Sparsity, by contrast, allows it to breathe, making it more exposed to the elements and so more fragile. In the case of the Riekte jeans, density suggests solidity, the ability to withstand wear and tear, as well as high quality due to abundance. Density is furthermore rendered through colour saturation; the deep indigo blue of the jeans with little colour differentiation connotes both density and stiffness as it is an indicator that the jeans have not been pre-washed or treated in any way. The indigo colour also evokes provenance as a signifier of the ‘true’ pigment of ‘blue jeans’. This global provenance is merged with colour choices of material that index different levels of locality: the yellow side seams are finished as a cross on the indigo blue fabric (as a Swedish flag), whereas the colours of the selvedge evoke ‘Sáminess’, as the colours red, blue and green are of the South Sámi flag, see Figure 4.

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Figure 4.

Selvedge and coloured seams. © Photographs: Arlene Archer.

In addition to the denim, there are a number of other materials used on the jeans. The tightly woven predictable tactile pattern of the denim contrasts to the irregular patterns on the inside cloth used to reinforce the back of the jeans, see Figure 5.

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Figure 5.

Inside cloth. © Photograph: Arlene Archer.

The pattern in Figure 5 varies in size and contours, and is unevenly distributed across the surface. It comprises white random dots and dots forming the shape of flowers on an indigo blue background. The pattern finds provenance in the domain of handicraft, signifying ‘indigenous art’, in contrast to the global provenance of the denim fabric. In addition, the textual ‘pattern’ on the buttons (comprising raised circles) also suggests Sámi provenance by resembling patterns that reoccur in Duodji tin handicraft and silver jewellery (Figure 6).

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Figure 6.

Fly buttons. © Photograph: Arlene Archer.

The leather patch with the Sarva logo on the back of the jeans (Figure 7) is made from reindeer leather, a choice which evokes provenance in historical as well as contemporary reindeer herding, which is fundamental for Sámi livelihood. Arguably, this choice adds to the historically but also locally refracted authenticity. In order to ensure recognition of the local difference, the web shop states that ‘The leather patch is made in Sweden with naturally tanned reindeer leather from KERO Company in Sattajärvi.’ Even if the consumer is unfamiliar with the KERO company or where Sattajärvi might be, the mention of these very local names and places serves to connote the garment with localness. In the next section, we look further at how Sámi authenticity is signified through the work of icons.

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Figure 7.

Iconographic stick figure. © Photographs: Arlene Archer.

Iconography and provenance

In order to grapple with how different discourses draw on motifs and symbols, this section focuses on iconography as an authenticating strategy. We look at denotative representations of objects, symbols and settings together with ‘the broader concepts, ideas and values’ (Van Leeuwen, 2004: 96) which they connote.

Iconographic symbols occur in different garment resources as well as in metadiscourse. There are a host of labels inside the jeans, including ‘made in Sweden’, two labels indicating the size of the jeans, and three other labels operating as certificates of authenticity. The most salient iconographic resource is an engraved figure on the reindeer leather patch on the back of the jeans, which is also etched on the back of the buttons as well as printed in black on the cardboard size tag (Figure 7). The image is a headless highly abstracted stick figure holding a round object, resembling a bow with an arrow.

This visual representation finds its provenance and iconographic frame of interpretation partly through its oversimplified style. On a general level, the stick figure performs semiotic work through what Barthes (1977: 23) refers to as ‘photogenia’ where the ‘connoted message is the image itself, “embellished” . . . by techniques of lighting, exposure and printing’. The lack of detail and ‘simple’ style of the figure together with techniques of leather and metal etching point to a global provenance in indigenous art and handicraft, partly resembling cave paintings and rock carvings.

Besides provenance in indigenous art, the figure also has provenance in Sámi mythology and religion. An iconographic intertextual analysis ‘informs us as to when and where specific themes were visualized by which specific motifs’ (Panofsky, 1955: 31). However, in order to ‘read’ the iconography of the stick figure, the motifs giving the visual composition its connotational meaning potentials have to be recognized by the interpreter (see Westberg and Årman, 2019). To this end, a brief excursion into historical Sámi religion is required. Within the Sámi religion, the noaidi (the Sámi shaman) has traditionally fulfilled a crucial role as mediator and traveller between different spiritual worlds, times and places (Bäckman, 2013). ¹¹ The key ceremonial means for such transcendental journeys is the jojk (a ceremonial chanting) and the ritual noaidi drum with mythological symbols engraved on it. During the 17th and 18th centuries, and at time of intensified colonization of Sápmi, Sámi religious life was forbidden and the drum and jojk practice of the noaidi was banned. During this time, many drums were destroyed and confiscated by the nation states, yet some were kept and hidden (Westman, 2001). Today, there are approximately 80 drums kept at different museums in Scandinavia, and the oldest source telling about the noaidis and their drums dates to the year 1190. Due to its crucial role within Sámi sacred life as well as its unique role as a carrier of mythological narratives, the noaidi drum today offers an iconic intertextual reference to Sámi heritage. Figure 8 depicts the engravings and symbols of the so-called ‘Drum no. 1’ presented in Manker’s (1950) exhaustive inventory of Sámi drums. To the right is an enlarged version of the figure in the centre.

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Figure 8.

Engravings on ‘Drum no. 1’ from Manker (1950: 219).

It is nearly impossible to say what the depicted figures on the drums ‘really mean’ or once ‘meant’ for the Sámi people during the 17th century: we suffer from a lack of first-hand narratives and perspectives. Despite this, interpretative attempts have been made: drum paintings of man-like figures holding a round and bow-like object have been interpreted as a symbol of the ‘hunter’ (Christoffersson, 2010; Manker, 1950; Westman, 2001). Regardless of the accuracy of such interpretations, Sarva recontextualizes the symbol as an icon which indexes Sámi inheritance, yet is highly stylized (Aiello and Pauwels, 2014; Thurlow and Aiello, 2007) with reduced details and sharpened contours. The important point here is that the symbol finds it intertextual meaning in relation to Sámi mythology and its indigenous practices and expressions, whereas the specific motive for drawing the figure on a noaidi drum is of less authenticating relevance. Through iconographic intertextual references together with visual stylization, the jeans are authenticated as a mediating link between Sámi heritage and present time.

The iconographic stick figure is also printed on an accompanying hexagon-shaped cardboard text, attached to the jeans by a red and white lace (Figure 9). However, in this emblem, the most salient iconographic resource is not the mythological figure, but the represented outdoor setting, evoking provenance in a standard tourist trope about ‘the unspoiled nature of the north’. The choice of brown and natural-looking cardboard feeds into the discourses of nature (see Wagner, 2015) and conservation constructed around the Sámi. The emblem is a graphic representation of a tarn, representing a spruce forest and mountains with snowy hilltops in the background. These denotative resources evoke connotations of a ‘natural’ and ‘local’ Sápmi, a landscape which is known for its unspoiled nature, far stretched views, mountains and alpine forests. This is the habitat and setting for the traditional Sámi livelihood of reindeer herding, hunting and fishing as well as seasonal migration. The representation is again stylized in a way that simultaneously amplifies the Sámi localness as it universalizes it. The recontextualized ‘Sáminess’ is balanced with ‘cross-cultural understandings’ and ‘perceptual qualities’ (Thurlow and Aiello, 2007: 330): nature is represented as uninhabited and silent, which points to a representational convention with provenance in tourism discourse (Heller and Duchêne, 2012; Thurlow and Jaworski, 2011). This cross-cultural provenance is traceable in tourist websites such as visitsweden.com/sapmi-and-sami, where similar semiotic resources are employed to associate Sápmi with values of origin and heritage. Arguably, the resources perform iconographic work by evoking provenance in a larger profit discourse about nature as a site for recreation, silence and peace (see Olafsdottir, 2013). This is further emphasized through the printing at the top: the jeans are ‘designed for rugged wear while hiking, hunting, fishing, boating or mountaineering’. These activities resonate with a contemporary global tourist and lifestyle discourse about outdoor living but, importantly, also evoke kinship with a discourse about Sámi livelihood and way of living as connected to nature.

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Figure 9.

Iconographic nature. © Photograph: Arlene Archer.

The discourse in and around the jeans taps into a larger commodifying discourse about the local nature of Sápmi. In addition to this, the trope of nature suggests a sense of ‘natural’ and ‘undisrupted’ historical continuity. The semiotic work performed by iconographic resources thus highlights the interconnectivity between localness and historicity. The garment offers a way for consumers to ‘experience’ Sápmi without physically going there and thus to embody and locate Sápmi and Sámi inheritance in space and time.

Language and signage as authenticating resources

Finally, let us turn to the diversity of displayed languages as an authenticating strategy. As a mechanism of late modernity and global capitalism, and together with the overall shift from pride to profit regarding minority groups and languages, sociolinguistic scholars have illuminated how language is also undergoing processes of commodification. Heller (2010: 102–103) differentiates between commodification of language as a technical skill and ‘as a sign of authenticity . . . useful as added value for niche markets and for distinguishing among standardized products that have saturated markets’. In metadiscourse around the jeans, Sarva primarily employs English, but also Swedish, Southern Sámi Language and Japanese.

English is the major language on the web page and on emblems attached to the jeans giving information about, for instance, size and origin of manufacturing (Figures 2 and 5). These instances contain lexical items and phrases (made in, premium, selvedge, denim, vintage) which have provenance in a register of high-end denim that connote the garment as ‘global’ (see Jaworski, 2015, on the register of globalese). Also, the description of the fit of the Riekte jeans is in English and draws on a global genre of fit description (‘Slim/regular with straight legs and normal height waist’). This specification indexes the value of ‘timelessness’ which augments the ‘historicity’ of the jeans. Overall, the use of English points to provenance in a global economy and to the role of English as the lingua franca for making artefacts into mobile commodities (Archer and Björkvall, 2018). Accordingly, the use of English as a means to adhere to a community within global capitalism must be seen as a case of banal globalization, performatively produced ‘in every day, routinized, individual, textual practices’ (Thurlow and Jaworski, 2010: 227). Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes (2011) make a similar observation with regard to the branding of Sámi souvenirs in Finnish Sápmi; the use of English on souvenir labels contributes to making the ‘Sámi product’ globally mobile and indicates accessibility and mobility for the international tourist.

The use of Swedish, Southern Sámi language and Japanese augment the localness as well as the historicity of the jeans. This is illustrated in Figure 10, depicting the emblems stitched to the inside of the left thigh pocket.

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Figure 10.

Multilingual resources. © Photograph: Arlene Archer.

As part of the authenticating practice, the Japanese operates on a global level, indexing contemporary provenance and heritage of high-end selvedge jeans production which moved from the USA to Japan after the end of WWII (see Keet, 2011). The employed Japanese signs are , which translate to ‘Japanese denim’. However, the use of Japanese is embedded and duplicated in English, reassuring the local and historical provenance of the garment to be globally recognized as ‘Japanese premium selvedge denim’. Whereas English and Japanese have a different kind of global provenance, the employment of Swedish indexes the local and regional by use of nomina propria (Nyström, 2016) for the locations Bringåsen; Jämtland and Östersund, names that nationally connote ‘the north’. Japanese and Swedish localize the jeans on different national and regional levels. By bringing different connotational origins together, the jeans are semiotically ascribed a relevant global conformity at the same time as ‘the local’ is re-invented within a possibly saturated market. The employment of diverse languages thus contributes to the stylization of the commodity.

The symbolic use of linguistic varieties is further accomplished through the use of Southern Sámi language in the brand name Sarva as well as in Riekte. Besides Riekte, Sarva also provides jeans models named Barka and Aerpie. Whereas Sarva translates to ‘(adult male) reindeer’ and Riekte to ‘straight/right angled’, Barka translates to ‘work/labour’ and Aerpie to ‘heritage/inheritance’. ¹² Whether or not names have the potential to ‘mean’ beyond their function to index a unique reference (see Nyström, 2016), it becomes clear that the function of the Sámi language here is not about allowing global mobility. Rather, the potential is exclusively symbolic, used to infuse the garment with an air of ‘Sáminess’ and ‘indigenousness’. Yet the translation of the Sámi words makes it clear that the names are motivated signs (Kress, 2010), aptly chosen for the purpose to authenticate. The name Sarva (meaning ‘reindeer’) evokes obvious provenance in the practices of reindeer herding; the name Riekte (‘straight/right angled’) finds provenance in relation to how the fit of jeans are described on the global jeans market; the name Barka (‘work/labour’) points to the provenance of jeans and denim as workwear, whereas the name Aerpie (‘heritage/inheritance’) anchors the jeans as a mediator of historicity.

The use of English and the sprinkling of diverse languages demonstrate how different resources – in this case linguistic ones – enable the jeans to balance between global mobility and authentic differentiation. Due to the exclusive symbolic use of peripheral languages, the metadiscourse about the jeans are never at risk of ‘going too far’ in striving for authenticity. This finally points to the affordance of language to ‘claim’ authenticity in cases when the resources of the garment lack the ability to index locality and historicity with enough specificity. The diversity of languages is thus similar to the stylized use of icons as well as garment resources, sanitized and locally predictable recontextualization of difference.

Final Comments

This article has argued that authenticity is discursively constructed, ‘always situated in a particular communicative event and subject to alterations and interpretations’ (Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes, 2011: 326). Our detailed semiotic analysis addresses the tension between the particular resources employed and that of the circulating discourses and texts around the jeans as artefact. A social semiotic approach sees meaning-making as both fluid and situated, and has enabled us to interrogate the ways in which Sarva jeans instantiate varying discourses across global and local contexts. The analysis reveals how coloured seams, the choice of materials and languages, as well as iconography, can recontextualize difference by evoking both ‘localness’ and ‘historicity’. We have seen how garment resources such as the thickness of the material, texture and leather details augment embodied ‘locality’ by affording long-time use and ‘durability’, which are suited to ageing rather than short-lived usage. The analysis contributes important insights regarding semiotic rendering of authenticity, as the employed concepts of ‘provenance’ and ‘affordance’ allow us to demarcate between connoted and practiced authenticity. As Aiello and Dickinsson (2014: 318) point out, this is an analytical distinction with evident overlaps, but the analysis presented above captures how certain semiotic resources (such as fabric weight and texture) can co-realize connoted and practised/afforded meaning potentials, whereas others cannot (such as icons and colours).

Our analysis also shows some of the ways in which material culture can contribute to expressing and constructing difference in a globalizing world by drawing on the ‘indigenous’. In the production of the Sámi jeans, there is an attempt to balance and foreground the dialectic between the global and the local by combining generic features with markers of specificity. An important methodological question for looking at commodified artefacts and how they establish authenticity is what kind of socially and culturally shaped knowledge do we need to understand both the historicity, the localness and the locality of the artefact? On the one hand, the semiotic resources employed need to be sufficiently generic and stylized for the artefact to appeal to a global audience. On the other hand, they need to be specific enough to capitalize on perceived ‘authenticity’. One way of doing this is to co-opt or appropriate discourses of the ‘indigenous’. From this perspective, the article adds important understanding to the overall discursive turn to profit regarding notions about ‘indigenousness’ (Heller and Duchêne, 2012). ‘Sáminess’ is recontextualized as a signifier of a globally recognizable authenticity. However, as Aiello and Pauwels (2014) remind us, the movement of visual and material resources across borders is ‘never neutral or straightforward, and in fact contributes to continually redefining the position and status of given cultural and social traits over others’ (p. 279). It is clear that the rendering of Sámi ‘authenticity’ resonates with certain stereotypes which, among other things, identify manual labour and specifically reindeer herding as the ‘natural’ and ‘apt’ pursuit of the Sámi (Mörkenstam, 2014). Thus, the circulation of symbols, sign systems and meaning-making practices in the global semioscape appeals to but, often commodifies cultural and social difference and, as such, can be deeply rooted in entrenching power relations.