The conference program covers comparative, interdisciplinary, methodological, and technological approaches to place name studies in general and to sacred place names in Sámi areas in particular, as well as questions about the ethics and politics of such place name research.

Thursday November 21

Room E-0101, HSL-fak

11.30 Registration

12.30: Lunch

13.30: Opening of conference and introduction

  • Dean of the HSL-faculty Sonni Olsen
  • Organizers Eldar Heide, Marte Spangen and Sigrun Høgetveit Berg

14.00: Eva Nyman (Mid Sweden University): Sacred place-names within the Germanic language area in Scandinavia

14.30: Veikko Anttonen (University of Turku): Place names as markers of ritual landscapes: pyhä, hiisi, áiligas and bassi toponyms in Finnish and Sámi speaking districts

15.00: Coffee break

15.20: Lars Ivar Hansen (UiT The Arctic University of Norway): Sacred place names and history

15.50: Minerva Piha (University of Turku): Linguistic-archaeological observations on South Saami sacred place names

16.20: Ingrid Sommerseth (UiT The Arctic University of Norway): Sacred bear grave sites and place names in Sápmi: preliminary thoughts from an ongoing study

16.50: Discussion

19.00: Conference dinner at restaurant Skirri

 

Friday November 22

Room E-0101, HSL-fak

09.00: Janne Saarikivi (University of Helsinki): Concept of sacredness in the Saami and Finnic place names

09.30: Aud Kirsti Pedersen (The Norwegian Mapping Authority): Socio-onomastic approaches to place name research in multilinguistic societies

10.00: Aleksander Pustyakov (University of Helsinki): Studying onomastics in indigenous contexts: Place names among the Mari (Russia)

10.30: Coffee break 

10.50: Håkan Rydving (University of Bergen): Categories of Sámi sacred sites (NB not live streamed)

11.20: Botolv Helleland (University of Oslo): Categorisation and methodology for studying sacred place names

11.50: Discussion

12.30: Lunch

13.30: Trond Trosterud (UiT The Arctic University of Norway): Computer technology and Sámi place names

14.00: Eldar Heide (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences): Simple digital aids in the study of sacred place names in a landscape context

14.30: CANCELLED: Ardis Ronte Eriksen (The Sámi Parliament): The role of the Norwegian Sámi parliament in the standardization of Sámi place names

15.00: General discussion

15.45: Final remarks by organizers