Application deadline

Applicants from Nordic countries: 1 December

Applicants from outside the Nordic countries: 15 October

Type of course

The course is part of the International Master of Philosophy in Indigenous Studies (MIS).

It is also optional within the Master in Social Anthropology .

The course may also be part of other disiplinary Master programmes within Social Sciences and Humanities and may be taken as a single course.

Admission requirements

Course content

The course provides an overview of traditional resource management practices among indigenous peoples, with particular focus on small-scale economies including hunting and gathering, fishing, shifting cultivation, and pastoralism.  We explore the connection between these land- (and sea-) based subsistence strategies and other aspects of culture and identity, including social and political structures, traditional knowledge systems, education, language, and cosmology. 

Today, these lifeways and cultures are under threat from a number of sources including: intensive resource extraction (mining, logging, oil), large-scale development projects (dams, transportation), environmental issues (pollution, climate change, conservation efforts), and resource competition from neighboring groups. In this course we will identify global processes affecting indigenous lands and livelihood, including political-economic trends and the indigenous rights movement.  We will look at how these processes take shape locally, through study of relevant UN mechanisms, regional courts and commissions, and specific local case studies. 

Objectives of the course

Students who successfully complete this course should have achieved the following learning outcomes:

Knowledge

• to explain the main economic and ecological characteristics of different types of indigenous resource management systems
• to be aware of the ethnographic literature of several indigenous societies across the world
• to describe the unique way that indigenous identities are invigorated by resource use paradigms

Analytical understanding

• to be able to describe the substantive differences and similarities between traditional ecological knowledge and scientific, positivist knowledge
• to be able compare vocabularies relating to human rights and property rights to concepts used within traditional management institutions
• to be able to compare the institutional resource management practices of different indigenous societies across the world

Skills and competences

• to be able to assess the impacts that global management models and external encroachment are having upon indigenous peoples
• to be able to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of different institutions protecting land and water-use rights, offering co-management, or protecting nature
• to be able to assist indigenous peoples to best present evidence to protect their political and legal rights.

Language of instruction and examination

Teaching methods

Assessment

Course work requirements:

Three individual written assignments/reports.

In order to sit an examination, the student must complete and gain approval for any coursework requirements.

Exam:

The final exam consists of a home examination and an oral examination. The home examination is to be based on a given topic. Students have one week to complete the home examination. Approximate length: 3500 words (about 10 pages).

The oral examination is intended to assess the student's knowledge of the course literature and general understanding of the course themes. This examination may adjust the grading of the essay.

Marking is made according to a grading scale from A to F, where F is fail.

The course is open for re-sit examination if there are students that due to sickness are entitled to a postponed examination.

Recommended reading/syllabus

Books (Total 262p)

Hays, Jennifer. 2016. Owners of Learning: The Nyae Nyae Village Schools over Twenty-Five Years. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien.

Case Study: Students will select one other book from a list provided; they can also submit a book of their choice for approval by the course responsible.

Articles and Chapters (Total 495p)

Barnhardt, Ray and Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, 2005. Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Alaska Native Ways of Knowing. In Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36:1, pp. 8-23. 15p

Berkes, Fikret and Dyanna Jolly. 2001. "Adapting to climate change: social-ecological resilience in a Canadian western Arctic community". Conservation Ecology. Vol. 5, No. 2, Pp. 1-17. / 17p.

Bjørklund, Ivar. 2003. "Sami Pastoral Society in Northern Norway - The National Integration of an Indigenous Management System". In Anderson, D. and M. Nuttall (eds.). Cultivating Arctic Landscapes. Oxford: Berghahn Press. Pp. 124-153. / 12p.

Doring Jeff and Paddy Nyawarra, 2013, ¿Gwion artists and Wunan law: the origin of society in Australia.¿ In Rock Art Research, 31:1, 3-13. 11p

Feit, Harvey. 1994. "Dreaming of animals: The Waswanipi Cree Shaking Tent Ceremony in relation to environment, hunting, and missionization". In Irimoto and Yamada (eds.). Circumpolar Region and Ecology. An Anthropology of the North. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. / 25p.

Hardin, Garrett. 1968. "The Tragedy of the Commons". Science. Vol. 162, No. 3859. Pp. 1243-1248 / 6p.

Hays, Jennifer, 2016. ¿Who owns education? Schooling, learning and livelihood for the Nyae Nyae Ju|¿hoansi.¿ In Journal of Namibian Studies, 20 (2016): 37 ¿ 61. 24p.

Ingold, Tim. 2000. "From trust to domination: an alternative history of human-animal relations". Ch. 4 in Ingold, T. The Perception of the Environment. Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London and New York. Routledge. / 16p.

Kendrick, Jusin and Jerome Lewis 2004: Indigenous peoples rights and the politics of the term indigenous. Anthropology Today, vol. 20 no. 2: 4-9. 5p

Kirsch, Stuart, 2007. Indigenous movements and the risks of counterglobalization: Tracking the campaign against Papua New Guinea¿s Ok Tedi mine. American Ethnologist, 34:2 pp 303-321 18p.

Kronik, Jakob and Jennifer Hays, 2015. ¿Limited Room for Manoeuver: Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change Adaptation Strategies.¿ In Siri Eriksen and Tor Håkon Inderberg (eds.) Development as usual is not enough (Routledge) p 251-272. 21p

Lee, Richard. 2013. ¿Subsistence: Foraging for a Living¿ Chapter 4 in The Dobe Ju|¿hoansi, Belmont, Wadsworth pp 41-63. 22p

Li, Tania Murray. 2000. ¿Articulating Indigenous Identity in Indonesia: Resource Politics and the Tribal Slot¿. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 149-179. 30p

Manuelito, Kathryn 2005. ¿The Role of Education in American Indian Self-Determination: Lessons from the Ramah Navajo Community School¿ In Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36:1, pp. 73¿87. 14p

Maurstad, Anita. 2002. "Fishing in murky waters - ethics and politics of research on fisher knowledge". Marine Policy 26. Pp. 159-166 / 8p.

McCabe, J Terrence et al, 2014. Livelihood Diversification through Migration among a Pastoral People Human Organization 73:4, pp. 389-400. 11p

Nadasdy, Paul. 2005. "The Anti-Politics of TEK: The Institutionalization of Co-management Discourse and Practice". Anthropologica. Vol. 47 (2). Pp. 215-232. / 17p.

Olsen, Kjell. 2007. "When identity is a private matter". Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics. Vol. 1 (1). Pp. 75-99. / 24p.

Rappaport, Joanne. 2008. Beyond Participant Observation: Collaborative Ethnography as Theoretical Innovation. Collaborative Anthropologies 1. Pp. 1-31 / 31p.

Saugestad, Sidsel 2001: Contested images: First peoples or marginalized minorities in Africa. In Barnard, A. and J. Kendrick (eds.), African Indigenous Peoples: First peoples or marginalized minorities? Edinburgh, Centre of African Strudies, pp 1-15. 15p

Saugestad, Sidsel, 2012. Regional and indigenous identities in the high north: enacting social boundaries. Polar Record 48, 229-335. 6p

Saugestad, Sidsel. 2010. "The impact of international mechanisms on indigenous rights in Botswana". The International Journal of Human Rights. Vol. 15, No. 1, Pp. 37-61. / 24p.

Sissons, Jeffrey. 2005. ¿Indigenous Children.¿ Chapter 4 in First Peoples. Indigenous cultures and their futures. Reaktion Books Ltd pp 85-111. 26p

Tester, Frank James and Peter Irniq. 2008. "Inuit Qaujimajatuaqangit: Social History, Politics, and the Practice of Resistance". Arctic. Vol. 61, Suppl. 1, Pp. 48-61 / 13p.

Thornton, Thomas F. and Nadezhda Mamontova, 2017. ¿Hunter-Gatherers and Fishing Rights in Alaska and Siberia: Contemporary Governmentality, Subsistence, and Sustainable Enterprises.¿ In Reyes-Garcia and Pyhälä, (eds), Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World, Springer (online), pp 149-173. 24p

Thuen, Trond. 1995. "Cultural Protection or self-determination: Incongruent imageries?" In. Thuen, T. Quest for Equity. Norway and the Saami Challenge. St. John`s: ISER Books. / 23p.

Virtanen, Pirjo K. 2017. ¿The Death of the Chief of Peccaries: The Apurinã and the Scarcity of Forest Resources in Brazilian Amazonia,¿ In Reyes-Garcia and Pyhälä, (eds), Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World, Springer (online), pp 91-105 14p

Willerslev, Rane. 2004. Not animal, not not-animal. Hunting, imitation and empathetic knowledge among the Siberian Yukaghirs. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Vol. 10 / 23p.