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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Indigenous Religion(s). Local Grounds, Global Networks

Alternative title: Urfolksreligion(er). Lokale steder, globale nettverk

Awarded: NOK 9.1 mill.

Indigenous religion(s). Local Grounds, Global Networks (INREL) What counts as "indigenous religion" in today´s world? Who claims this category? What are the processes through which local entities become recognizable as "religious" and "indigenous"? How is all of this connected to struggles for power, rights and sovereignty? INREL targets global formations, dynamics and processes, in the wake of the international indigenous movement, and the emergence of indigenous people as a people. The title of the project refers to a distinction between globalizing discourses (how indigenous religion is imagined) and local usage and implications of such discourses. The project is based on a comparative design, comprised of fieldwork in Sápmi, Nagaland and Gujarat (India), Talamanca (Costa Rica), Hawaii and Nigeria, performed by an international core group of researchers from Norway, Great Britain and the United States. We have concluded on the following tendencies: indigenous religion is recognizable through specific vocabularies and configurations, and can be understood as a discursive formation. By indigenous religion (singular form) we mean notions of a "we", and a flexible but relatively standardized vocabulary (harmony with nature, healing and holism, antiquity and spirituality etc.). Indigenous religion is today prominent in North America and Scandinavia, in Central and South America, and in Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. It is less important, but increasingly represented also in Africa and Asia, including India and Siberia. Contexts include protests, tourism, festivals, educational systems, research, mission, law, art, exhibits, popular culture and media. Reasons are similarly diverse, but often connected to sovereignty in the form of protection of homeland, identity, and traditions. Indigenous religion often serve as a translational device between specific local languages and traditions and established indigenous repertoires, as when the Sámi goddess Máttaráhkká is translated to Mother Earth, and thus comes across as recognizably indigenous. It further offers a language for sacred claims ? ultimate demands, through reference to authorities and concerns outside of political negotiations and compromises. For some of our case-studies, it also serves as a model for the reconstruction of religions from the past, as when the Sámi noaidi reappears as a shaman. This last example exemplify another tendency in the material we have explored. Claims for sovereignty is increasingly formulated in regard to environmentalism and climate fight, some times with the opportunity for upscaling from the locally specific ("this river") to global concerns (as with the Standing Rock protests´ "Water is life"-slogan). Collaborative comparison has, in regard to methodology, been the project´s most important and innovative contribution. It has consisted in joint fieldwork, workshops at each other´s fieldwork sites, and sustained commitment to collaboration with project members and stakeholders. INREL´s perhaps most important theoretical contribution is the development of a more open and dynamic approach to indigenous religion(s), relative to what has been the case for religious studies and anthropological research. Perspectives on translation and comparison, and on scales/scaling have been central in this concern. Results have been presented in several books and articles. Most important in regard to overall results, is a book carrying the same name as the project, by five of the core members, published on Routledge (open access) in 2020. Other publications include Handbook of Indigenous religion(s), and two special editions of the journals Numen (2018, vol. 65, 5-6) and Religious Studies and Theology (2017, vol. 36,1). One of three planned monographs was published in 2020 by Stanford Press (Longkumer). A second will be published by Routledge during the spring of 2021 (Kraft). A third will be completed during 2021 (Johnson). One of our PhDs defended her thesis successfully in 2019. For the second, the project period has been extended to May 2021 (due to maternity leave). Two (externally funded) PhDs plan to submit in 2021 and 2022 respectively. Popular dissemination include the podcast series "Thinking About Indigenous Religions" (by Liudmila Nikanorova), to be launched mid January 2021, based on project results. Eight master students have also been connected to the project. We have established a master course, based on INREL-perspectives (entitled Indigenous religion(s), and have started working on a revision of our study programs in the direction of a more focused profiling of indigenous religion(s). INREL-results provides the premises for the project GOVMAT (the governmateriality of indigenous religion(s), which startet during the fall of 2020, based on a funding from NFR.

Oppnådde og potensielle virkninger og effekter - basert på prosjektets resultater Prosjektet har vært avgjørende for utviklingen av det religionsvitenskapelige fagmiljøet i Tromsø med hensyn til kompetanse, partnere/nettverk, og fundering av langsiktige strategier. Det har også satt Tromsø på forskningskartet. INREL er internasjonalt ledende på feltet for religion og urfolksstudier, ifølge HUMEVAL 2017 (jvf. også Cox 2018 og Schermerhorn 2020). Med hensyn til langsiktige virkninger og effekter for fagfeltet håper vi å ha bidratt til 1) empirisk basert teoretisering av religion blant urfolk (kontra stereotypiserende forestillinger om en bestemt type religion), 2) kritisk komparasjon og teoretisering, basert på faglige samarbeidsrelasjoner over tid (snarere enn individuelt baserte case studier), 3) økt forståelse for forholdet mellom globale strømninger og lokale forhold, i en verden der urfolk og urfolksreligion(er) i økende grad møtes og påvirker hverandre

By "Indigenous religion" we mean a globalizing discourse, consisting of notions of an indigenous "we" and a flexible, but fairly standardized, vocabulary of assumed similarities: harmony with nature, healing and holism, antiquity and spirituality, shamanism and animism. Several scholars have referred to the increasing importance of such a formation, but we know little of usages and implications on local indigenous grounds; of who uses it, for which purposes and with what results; of who opposes it, for which reasons; and of how usage and content become recognizable as "indigenous". This project is an attempt to address this gap in research on indigenous religion(s). It will be based on a comparative, bottom up design, which will harness our collective research on specific indigenous traditions from diverse regions, placing these and our analyses of them in a comparative framework. We will be concerned with different levels and scales. How are hyper-local articulations of identity recast and refocused as indigenous representatives announce and enact religious claims and practices on global stages? In which ways does Indigenous religion (in the singular) impact established indigenous religions (in the plural)? How is Indigenous religion articulated through local attempts to reclaim past traditions/religions? The project involves an international group of 7 scholars, all of which have high expertise and established, long-term relations with the indigenous traditions they will be studying (in Sàpmi, Costa Rica, Panama, India, Hawaii, Ghana and Nigeria). 2 PhD candidates will focus on a South American and an East Asian case of their choice. 4 thematic fields (organized as work packages) have been selected in order to focus fieldworks and allow for comparison: translation, performance, media and technologies, and sovereignty. In the 5th WP, we will harness our collective work through a comparative study within the overall frames of the project, and structured by WPs 1-4.

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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam