Sentrene

From Nature to iNature. Articulating a Sami Christian Identity Online.

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Olsen, Torjer Andreas
The article discusses the activities of both indigenous people and religion online, and introduces the pair of concepts indigeneity-online/online-indigeneity as a means of analysing this activity. This concept is new, and leans heavily on the pair of concepts religion-online/online-religion that is used in religious studies. The second part of the article consists of an analysis of the website www.osko.no, a site for the Christian education of Sami children and youth. I treat this as an expression of, or a medium for, the contemporary formation of Sami identity, and argue that it can be seen as an indigenous website. The Church of Norway, as an institution with a strong history of colonization and Norwegianization, has developed into an institution that seeks to integrate, implement and strengthen the Sami voices and traditions to such extent thatSami Christians use it as platform for the communication of a Sami kind of Christianity. www.osko.no is an example of a certain articulation of Sami identity. What seems to be the preferred or idealized Saminess is related to nature and a particular past, and is distant to modernity, urban culture and Norwegian culture.

Viewing Ethnicity from the Perspective of Individuals and Households: Finnmark during the Late Nineteenty Century

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Jåstad, Hilde Leikny
In Norway, historical sources which yield first-hand information about how different ethnic groups defined themselves are scarce. Second-hand information on the other hand is available in the population censuses undertaken from 1845 onwards. The first part of this article gives a brief description of the source material, and in order to evaluate the strength of the ethnicity variable given in the population censuses a comparison is carried out with J.A. Friis’s population table attached to his ethnographic map of 1861 and his estimate of the Sámi population (Friis 1861: 1-5). In the second part of the article the focus will be on the instructions given to census takers and how they carried out their work in pract ice. There will also be a discussion of the usefulness of a reorganisation of census data into household units and how this strengthens our understanding of ethnic registration. A key finding here concerns the degrees of ethnic homogeneity and heterogeneity in households. The extent of mixed marriages, both in time and space, will also be an important issue for discussion. Mixed marriages can be a key variable in understanding social interaction between different ethnic groups.
This article is part of Hilde L. Jåstad's doctoral thesis. Available in Munin at http://hdl.handle.net/10037/3372

Contested Methaphors in the European North

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Wråkberg, Urban

Futures of Northern Cross-Border Collaboration

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Wråkberg, Urban
The Barents Institute of the University of Tromsø and the Centre for North European and Baltic Studies of the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations (MGIMO) jointly launched, in 2011, the so-called Futures of Northern Cross-Border Collaboration Project. It brought together academic researchers and public and business managers with different specialities into a multidisciplinary network. This publication is a selection of the presentations held by the group at a round-table organised at MGIMO in 2011. In the first part of the book the “New North” is discussed, i.e. the new geopolitical power-field that has resulted from Arctic melting. The latter causes many environmental problems but on the bright side of things, at sea, diminishing ice opens new routes in the Arctic Ocean that will be important to international shipping. This also facilitates access to off-shore fossil fuel extraction on the large continental shelves of the circumpolar North. The second section of this book discusses the various challenges that are now urgent to address. Sound stewardship and sustainable economic growth can only be based on proactive development of knowledge through research, by continuing the successes of cultural and professional partnerships in the European north and by expanding the scopes and availability of cross-border programmes in higher education.

Vetenskaplig expertis och nordområdets naturresurser

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Wråkberg, Urban
The essay reflects on political pressures exerted by and on scientists and technologists acting as advisors on political and economic matters of the high north.It uses two case studies to do this. One consists in the group of scientists from several nations who engaged as advisors to their foreign offices in the process leading up tothe ratification of the Spitsbergen/Svalbard treaty in 1920. The focus is on the discourse regarding hunting, mining and nature protections on these islands. The second case is the way technologists and geological scientists were engaged in the industrialisation of the USSR. These contexts of course differ in scale and in many other ways but are similar in certain respects. The discussion is centred on the problems of technocracy which is commented based on the Frankfurt school's elaborations on the open society and differing interpretations of technological determinism. This is related further to contemporary contentions over the balance between scientific based environmental stewardship and technological management in northern raw material extraction.

The Effect of Ethnicity and Economy upon Intergenerational Coresidence : Northern Norway during the Last Part of the Nineteenth Century

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Jåstad, Hilde Leikny
During the last part of the nineteenth century, Finnmark province and the Northern part of Troms experienced a decline in intergenerational coresidence. This article discusses what impact ethnic affiliation and economic activity had on the living arrangements of the elderly, and what contributed to the change. Logistic regression shows that ethnicity played a role, but its effect disappears after controlling for economic activity. Intergenerational coresidence was positively associated with being a married Sámi male with an occupation in farming or combined fishing and farming. As such a person grew older, he was increasingly likely to live separately from an own adult child. This pattern changed towards the end of nineteenth century. By the close of the century, ethnic differences had disappeared, and headship position, irrespective of marital status, was strongly related to coresidence.
This article is part of Hilde L. Jåstad's doctoral thesis. Available in Munin at http://hdl.handle.net/10037/3372

Educating the Citizen of Academia Online?

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Solberg, Mariann
The Arctic is a vast, sparsely populated area. The demographic situation points to online distance education as a solution to support lifelong learning and to build competence in the region. An overall aim of all university education is what Hans Georg Gadamer calls Bildung, what we in Norwegian call dannelse and what Richard Rorty has called edification. A first problem to be addressed here is that in online distance learning some teachers find that is harder to support the development of the student’s voice. Being able to express oneself and to position oneself in a scientific community is vital for a well-educated graduate. Another problem in online education has been the extensive use of writing as a means in the student’s learning process. Writing is vital to academic education, but in online courses there is in general a danger of overuse. At the University of Tromsø we have tested the web conference tool Elluminate Live. This is a real-time application, integrated in the University’s learning management system (LMS), Fronter. The application enables synchronous oral dialogue, simultaneous sharing of texts, and so forth. I present our main experience with the use of Elluminate Live and discuss the extent to which this application has turned out to be helpful in developing the quality of online courses.

Custidial reindeer and custodial goats - part of reindeer herding and animal husbandry

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Evjen, Bjørg

The Unfinished Mission : The History of the ILO Convention 169 concerning Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Rangel, Pablo
Presentation at the 6th annual Forum for Development Cooperation with Indigenous Peoples, which commenced in 2005. The Centre for Sámi Studies hosted the conference at the University of Tromsø, Norway.
Full conference report available at http://hdl.handle.net/10037/2999

’For the Love of Thy Mother Tongue’ : Indigenous Language Revitalization

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Satta, Erika
Presentation at the 6th annual Forum for Development Cooperation with Indigenous Peoples, which commenced in 2005. The Centre for Sámi Studies hosted the conference at the University of Tromsø, Norway.
Full conference report available at http://hdl.handle.net/10037/2999