Jelena Porsanger

Jelena Porsanger (born 1967) is a Russian-born Norwegian Sami ethnographer who researches Sami culture and history. From 2011 to 2015, she was the rector of the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino, Norway.

Early life and education Jelena Sergeyevna Semyjashkina was born in Loparskaya, Soviet Union in 1967, the same rural locality she grew up in on the Kola Peninsula, in the Kildin Saami area. However, her family background is from the Skolt Sami area near the border between Russia and Finland, and her father must have spoken Skolt Sami. Her parents were researchers of the Northern Lights at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Kola Science Centre under the Russian Academy of Sciences, and therefore, Porsanger was influenced at an early age to develop an academic career. Porsanger has said that the inspiration for the assignment came from being frustrated at how little has been written about the Eastern Sami culture and religion, and that what was written was "unjustly generalized".

Porsanger's research interests include the decolonization of research, the design of indigenous methodology, research ethics, Sami research history, and the history and spiritual culture of the Eastern Sami. She was subsequently employed at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Kautokeino, where, since 2010, she has led a research project for the development of methodology, documentation, preservation, protection and storage of Årbediehtu (traditional Sami knowledge). On August 1, 2011, she became rector at the college, a position she held until 2015. Porsanger has also been a member of the panel of experts for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.