Visiting Norwegian Professor
Sámi traditional singing, Yoik, in early childhood education.
Re-thinking strategies for learning and moving power.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Clearihue Building Room C112
Traditionally yoiks are made by people that know and love you, usually parents or relatives. Yoik describe people or objects even without words, creating a feeling of love and belonging and a source for remembering stories about people and landscape, sometimes over many generations. From an indigenous perspective yoik is a strong part of the Sámi culture, and is now
threatened in its traditional form. Today, few children are gifted with their own yoik and all the feelings and history that
accompany the little songs. This gives an urgency to my work and demonstrates that it is important for us do something about it, by supporting the renaissance of the yoik in Sámi early childhood spaces. I want to make visible adult discourses embedded with motion and taboo, which problematize the yoik. My goal is to use traditional ways of learning or ‘knowledge-moving’ to find new paths to yoik, and also in relation to the acquisition of other skills and knowledge.