Dr. Polit Geir Grenersen of the University of Tromso Faculty of Humanities Program in Documentation Studies will present a paper entitled Sámi Culture and Language Centers: Documentation of a Threatened Heritage at The 2009 ASIS&T Annual Meeting, on November 9, 2009. Here is the abstract:
“The Sámis are the indigenous population of Northern Scandinavia. In Norway there are 30‐50,000 Sámis, 10‐12,000 of whom use Sámi as their first language. When the oppressive policy against the Sámi population was improved during the 1960s, some Sámi communities established language‐ and cultural centres for documentation and development of their language and cultural heritage. Documentation was seen as a method to keep alive and renew the traditional bonds
between territory and identity. Indigenous people sought to document their knowledge in other mediums than the oral story. As the Sámis achieved access to higher education, the cultural centres became staffed with Sámi professionals. Today these institutions play an important role in providing documents as evidence in trials over land and water rights. This paper discusses how the Sámi language and cultural centres can be seen as paradigmatic documentary institutions. It also emphasizes the importance of document theory as a theoretical tool for a better understanding of the status of documents in the ongoing trials over land and water rights.”
Tags: American Society for Information Science and Technology, ASIST, ASIST 2009, Documentary theory, Documentation of indigenous land rights, Documentation of indigenous law, Documentation of indigenous water rights, Documentation of Sámi law, Documentation of the law of indigenous peoples, Land law information systems, Law of indigenous peoples, Law of indigenous peoples in Norway, Legal information among indigenous peoples, Sámi cultural centers, Sámi language centers, Sámi law, Water law information systems
