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Mission

Mission

The iCross-Cultural Citizen Project is a cultural anthropology course-based project meant to raise critical consciousness about the rich cultural diversity in our indigenous world. Being totally aware of the limitations of being outsiders, we are a group of multidisciplinary undergraduate students who believe in cross-cultural sensitivity and participatory agency aimed at disseminating information about indigenous realities as accurately as possible.

Vision

Vision

The iCross-Cultural Citizen Project’s vision is to create an online cross-cultural space for students, professionals, and youth to learn and exchange cross-culturally sensitive information about contemporary indigenous experiences. From that outsider student’s perspective, we will try to theoretically explore possible collaborative solutions to problems that affect the indigenous populations of our planet. Finally, we hope for the future creation of a space where indigenous youth can share their experiences and their realities with us for real mutual collaboration to take place.

Values

Values

· We value the maximization of benefits to indigenous peoples and other vulnerable populations in the world.

· We value the respect for persons all over the world.

· We value the equal treatment of people, and we are against the exploitation of vulnerable groups around the world.

· We value collaborative cross-cultural learning and critical thinking.

History

History

According to historians, the Sami, also known as the “Lapps” in parts of Scandinavia and Northwest Russia were a primitive hunting tribe that derives a majority of its economy from herding animals resembling reindeer. The Sami call the land in which they live on Sapmi meaning same. In combination with fishing and crafting, the Sami are one of the most unique native Scandinavian groups to date.

Location

The Sami live in the tundra (arctic/treeless plain) and in the taiga (arctic/subarctic forest) which spreads across 4 major northern Europe consisting of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula, the area is know as Sapmi. Traditionally the Sami lived in communities called “siida”, who cooperated together in order to fish, hunt, and trap certain animals in the Northern European landscape. There is an estimated 44,000-50,000 Sami people left on the planet, with a majority of the people residing in Sweden.

Background information

Background information
Background Information

Background Information

The indigenous Sami people are sometimes called "the people with four countries" because their ethnic group spans the borders of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. Their language is divided into several distinct dialects belonging to the Finno-Urgic family of languages. The Sami culture can be traced back at least 2,000 years. Reindeer herding has been central to Sami culture and crucial to the subsistence of the Sami, providing meat, fur, and transportation. The genetic origin of the Sami people is complex, and it is difficult to trace. This group’s beginnings are closely linked to the origin of the Finns. There is no direct historical evidence of the Sami prior to the first century C.E. For a long time the Sami were an oppressed people and their culture was in danger of dying out. Today the Sami stand stronger than most other aboriginal people in the world. They have their independence day, and their own flag and parliament.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Religion (Ethnographic Post)

The main religious practice for the Sami was shamanism.  In traditional Sami religion, living beings and inanimate objects were all thought to have souls.  It was through a special priest or shaman, called a noaidi, that a person could communicate and connect the spiritual and physical world.  A shaman could only perform this task when juoigan is being performed, which consists of chanting and drumming which is the traditional Sami music.

With the passing of time, the Sami people have slowly been converting to Christianity.  This was not willingly, however.  It had mostly to do with a man named Lars Levi Laestadius who was a Swedish Sami pastor that was put in charge by the Swedish government to convert the Sami from a shamanistic religion to Lutheranism.  Through preaching in Sami, he acted as the intermediary for the two societies (Sapmi and Sweden), establishing a trust which eventually caused the decline of traditional Sami religion.




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