Master's in Indigenous Studies Alumni

Study in Arctic

Master's in Indigenous Studies Alumni

“Taking Our Language back home” – Motivation and Challenges in the South Sami area.

Author

The role of the New Evenkiness in the Evenki Language revitalization: The case of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

Author

God Speaks Skolt Sámi as Well: Finnish Orthodox Church as a domain of Language Use among the Skolt Sámi in Sevettijärvi

Abstract
This study describes how the Finnish Orthodox Church in Sevettijärvi functions as a domain of language use and furthermore analyses what role the Church has had in the process of the Skolt Sámi language revitalization. Many researchers have expressed the importance of the Orthodox Church in everyday life of Skolt Sámi, however none have focused on the Church in the Skolt Sámi context from a sociolinguistic point of view. This study builds on the theoretical concept of domains of language use developed by Joshua Fishman and examines the Finnish Orthodox Church in Sevettijärvi as a domain of language use. This thesis shows what factors influence the language choice in this domain, how the domain has developed, and how it has influenced the Skolt Sámi language outside this domain. Empirically, my study is based on ten semi-structured interviews and participant observation. I present my data divided into four main parts: religious literature, religious services, religious education, and other communication in the domain of the Orthodox Church (communication between the church and the members through media, between the clergy and parishioners, among parishioners and individual communication with the divine). In this thesis, I argue that the Orthodox Church has supported the Skolt Sámi language and its revitalization. At the same time, I show what hinders the further development of the Skolt Sámi language in this domain and what measures might be taken in order to strengthen the position of the Skolt Sámi language in the future.
Thesis in Munin

Resistance and change: A case study of economic changes and its effect on Language, Food habits and dress of the nomadic hunting-gathering Raute of Nepal.

Abstract
Raute, an endangered indigenous group, are the last nomadic hunting-gathering tribe of Nepal who basically traverse through four districts: Dailekh, Salyan, Surkhet and Jajarkot of mid-west Nepal. Hunting monkeys and rhesus, foraging wild plants and fruits, and manufacturing woodenwares to barter for food and non-food items with the sedentary villagers are the primary economic sources of their traditional life. However, the changes that occurred in the socio-cultural practices in surrounding sedentary societies (due to global economic politics) and ecology (due to global warming) have significantly influenced the Raute’s traditional mode of economy for the last few decades in spite of their resistance. This ethnography basically focuses on the changes in the economic structure of Raute despite their meticulous resistive practices applied to avoid the external forces for cultural assimilation and its impacts on traditional language, food habit and dress, thereby maintaining cultural intactness. The changes in Nepalese national political scenario over the last seventy years, mainly after 1990, formation of various national laws including several forest acts and the growing involvement of local villagers for forest resource management have significantly curbed the Raute’s traditional ways of using forest resources these days. Additionally, depletion of resources, which were the sole sources of Raute economy, because of ecological degradation caused by global warming has further cumulated the effects on the Raute’s ancestral economic structure. Although, the hunting-gathering culture of this nomadic tribe has been getting multiple arrows from different angles, the sensible manoeuvres that they have been applying to parry the external blows have remarkably diluted the imposed impacts. This study also highlights how the same resistive strategies on the other hand play a significant role in the Raute’s adaptation to the changing socio-ecological context.
Thesis in Munin