Thinking About Indigenous Religions

What counts as indigenous religions? Who uses this term? How are their claims connected to indigenous movements and struggles for recognition, rights and sovereignty? Who opposes and problematizes the category of indigenous religions, and why do they do that?To address these questions and introduce the study of indigenous religions we are joined by the authors of the open-access book Indigenous Religion(s): Local Grounds, Global Networks  (Routledge 2020), professor Siv Ellen Kraft and professor Bjørn Ola Tafjord, both from UiT The Arctic University of Norway.This podcast is brought to you by INREL and GOVMAT from the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.  Recording studio and technical support: UiT Result. Musical intro and outro: Lasse Michelsen. Host, editor and logo designer: Liudmila Nikanorova.

In this episode we have the privilege to be joined by Elle-Hánsa, a Sámi artist, cartographer, and indigenous activist, to talk about how, through his art, he became a Sámi activist. Elle-Hánsa is also known as Hans Ragnar Mathisen (his Norwegian name), and Keviselie (a name given to him by his Naga friends and relatives). Elle-Hánsa's first map of Sápmi offered a unique vision of Sápmi without the borders of the nation-states (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia), which he took to the World Council of Indigenous Peoples at the Tseshaht Reservation (BC, Canada) in 1975. The map featured Sámi place names, which were previously unknown for many, including Elle-Hánsa himself, who shares with us his personal journey of losing and then learning his mother tongue. Elle-Hánsa introduces us to his ways of map-making, drawings of Sámi drums and the art work featuring  Sámi árran  designed for the cover of the book Indigenous Religion(s): Local Grounds, Global Networks  (Routledge 2020). Visit  Elle-Hánsa's webpage to find his maps, drawings, graphics, poetry and essays. For those who live in Tromsø, you can also visit Elle-Hánsa's exhibition at Bei Jing Home restaurant. This podcast is brought to you by INREL and GOVMAT from the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Recording studio and technical support: UiT Result.Musical intro and outro: Lasse Michelsen.Host, editor and logo designer: Liudmila Nikanorova.

How to do research in religious studies without being too preoccupied with finding religion? How to resist the temptation of translating things categorically into religion and indigeneity? How to take seriously practices that powerful institutions try to delegitimize as ‘false religion’ or ‘primitive religion’? How to do critical research without religionizing and indigenizing practices and communities uncritically? In this episode, we meet Professor Bjørn Ola Tafjord, who describes how episodes during his work in Talamanca (Costa Rica) and Tromsø (Norway) have made him question stereotypical academic uses and expectations of indigenous religions. His study of the Baháʼí Faith as an indigenous religion of Bribri people in Talamanca challenges both authenticity discourses and biased ideas about classes of religions, but, most importantly, it focuses on the role of academic translations.For more on this topic, read Tafjord's chapter Translating Indigeneities: Educative Encounters in Talamanca, Tromsø and Elsewhere (Routledge 2020) (Open Access).This podcast is brought to you by INREL and GOVMAT from the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.Recording studio and technical support: UiT Result.Musical intro and outro: Lasse Michelsen.Host, editor and logo designer: Liudmila Nikanorova. 

This two-part episode is dedicated to the Alta Conflict, where  Sámi activists led a series of protests  in the 1970s and 1980s against the construction of a hydroelectric power plant on the Alta River in Northern Norway. The Sámi activists declared a hunger strike on the 8th of October, 1979, in front of the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo. The Alta Conflict is reported to be the largest Sámi protest, which was followed by fundamental changes in the relationship between the Sámi people and the Norwegian State.Sámi anthropologist and activist, Jorunn Eikjok, a key figure in the Alta movement who took part in the hunger strike for Sámi rights, joins us today. In Part One, Jorunn shares what life  life was like for her before the Alta Conflict and her motivations for becoming an activist. 

"Norwegian Government did not just give us Sámi rights; we, the Sámi people, demanded our rights!"In Part Two of this two-part episode, we continue the conversation with Sámi anthropologist and activist Jorunn Eikjok, as she takes us through the protest site in Oslo, 1979 . The Alta Conflict is reported to be the largest Sámi protest, which was followed by fundamental changes in the relationship between the Sámi people and the Norwegian State. Find Part One here. 

Former Sámi Parliament President Aili Keskitalo declared Standing Rock "is our common cause. It has become symbolic, one may rightly say that this is the world's Alta-case" (NRK Nyheter 07.11.2016)In this episode, we meet Professor Siv Ellen Kraft, who talks about the shift to 'indigeneity' and 'indigenous religions' among the Sámi, through a focus on Sámi activism in Alta (1979-1981, concerning a proposed power plant) and Standing Rock (2016-2017, concerning a proposed pipeline). For more on this topic, read Kraft's chapter Indigenous Religion(s) - in the Making and on the Move: Sámi activism from Alta to Standing Rock (Routledge 2020).This podcast is brought to you by INREL and GOVMAT from the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.Recording studio and technical support: UiT Result.Musical intro and outro: Lasse Michelsen.Host, editor and logo designer: Liudmila Nikanorova.

How does ‘sovereignty’ play out in the Naga areas – on the borders of India and Myanmar – with their rich stories connected to land, and their struggles to survive? How can we think about notions of sovereignty beyond nation-state boundaries, territorial independence, common language, culture, and religion; instead look at the productive ways in which people orient their lives, and politics, across time and space? What are the different ways in which academics and journalists use the languages of human rights, sovereignty, indigeneity or religion? In this episode, Dr Arkotong Longkumer, Senior Lecturer/Programme Director of Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and PhD research fellow in Religious Studies, Aheli Moitra, at UiT-The Arctic University of Norway, talk about their work in the Naga lands - with Christianity, the role of prophecies, with a newspaper, movements for the recognition of Naga rights and participating in international networks, among other things.For more on this topic, read Longkumer's chapter Indigenous Futures: The practice of sovereignty in Nagaland and other places (Routledge 2020) (Open Access).Also check out Longkumer's new book The Greater India Experiment: Hindutva and the Northeast (South Asia in Motion) (Stanford University Press 2021). This podcast is brought to you by INREL and GOVMAT from the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.Recording studio and technical support: UiT Result.Musical intro and outro: Lasse Michelsen.Host, editor and logo designer: Liudmila Nikanorova.

This episode concentrates on the translation - the transformation in performance - of the U.N.'s International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples (9th of August) into the World Adivasi Day (Vishwa Adivasi Divas or Din) in Gujarat, specifically in the town of Chhotaudepur.  Professor Arjun Rathva  from MC Rathva College and Professor Gregory D. Alles  from McDaniel College talk about an imagined global adivasi ('indigenous') community, ongoing legal challenges to the status of Rathvas as constituting a 'Scheduled Tribe', and 'de-religionising' processes at the World Adivasi Day.  For more on this topic, read Alles's chapter Imagine Global Adivasi-ness: Celebrating Global Adivasi Day in Chhotaudepur (Routledge 2020) (Open Access). This podcast is brought to you by INREL and GOVMAT from the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.Recording studio and technical support: UiT Result.Musical intro and outro: Lasse Michelsen.Host, editor and logo designer: Liudmila Nikanorova.