The Academic Study of Indigenous Religions

UNIVERSITETET I TROMSØ – ANNOUNCEMENT – INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Tromsø is hosting a workshop /
PhD-course on the academic study of indigenous religions, in Tromsø, Norway, December
10–12, 2008.

“The academic study of indigenous religions”
What are “indigenous religions”? How can such religions be studied? In recent years, studies in the classic and interdisciplinary field of “indigenous religions” have met a lot of new challenges. As a consequence, the thinking and acting on several issues have become significantly altered. Questions about representation, reflexivity and power have been among the most heavily debated. This, in turn, has become echoed in several new scholarly contributions, in which theoretical perspectives, methodologies and research ethics – aspects of scholarship that must be understood as intimately intertwined – are dealt with and discussed in new ways. The workshop aims at presenting and discussing the most pertinent and pressing of these questions and contributions, and to relate them to the particular research projects of the participants.

Both contemporary and historical studies will be addressed. So will research with local foci (e.g. from Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, New Zealand, Sápmi / Northern Scandinavia, and Great Britain), as well as research on global movements and discourses (e.g. indigenous movements, new religious movements, and discourses on “nature” and “primitivism”), and, of course, research on relations between local situations and global developments.

Keynote lecturers:
Dr. Graham Harvey, Reader in Religious Studies, Open University, UK. Harvey is a specialist in contemporary paganisms, as well as Maori traditions and religion, author and editor of several articles and books on indigenous religions, e.g. Indigenous Religions: A Companion (2000), Readings in Indigenous Religions (2002), and Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations (2005, with C. D. Thompson jr.), and editor of Ashgate’s Vitality of Indigenous Religions Series (see http://www.grahamharvey.org/cv.htm).

Dr. Ronald Niezen, Professor in Anthropology, McGill University, Canada. Niezen has research experience from Mali, Canada and Finland, and has also done extensive studies of the international indigenous movement. Among his publications are Spirit Wars: Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation Building (2000), The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity (2003), and A World Beyond Difference: Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization (2004) (see http://www.mcgill.ca/anthropology/faculty/fulltime/ronald_niezen/).

We hereby invite PhD-students and scholars to come and participate. 10 ECTS-credits are granted PhD-students that present an approved paper. No registration fees. Deadline for registration: October 1, 2008.

For information about the University of Tromsø, see http://www.uit.no; and about the city of Tromsø, see http://www.destinasjontromso.no/english/index.html. Among the budget places to stay are AMI Hotel (http://www.amihotel.no/english/index.php), ABC Hotel Nord (http://www.hotellnord.no/english/index.html), Thon Hotel Polar (http://www.thonhotels.no/polar) and Amalie Hotell (http://www.amalie-hotell.no/en/).

If reserved well in advance, budget air tickets are available with Norwegian (http://www.norwegian.no/) and SAS (http://www.sas.no/en/).

For further information and registration, please contact:

Dr. Bjørn Ola Tafjord, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Tromsø, bjorn.tafjord@sv.uit.no, (+47) 776 45 289,

or

Dr. Siv Ellen Kraft, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Tromsø, siv.ellen.kraft@sv.uit.no, (+47) 776 44 390,

or

Hans Petter Clemetsen, Head of Administration, Department of Religious Studies, University of Tromsø, hans.petter.clemetsen@sv.uit.no, (+47) 776 45 796.