Thematic Network on Circumpolar Archives, Folklore and Ethnography (CAFE) members win large international grant to reserach indigenous heritage
ArcHeritage is the UK component of one of six international projects for the Joint Project Initiative on Cultural Heritage, Society and Ethics. It will run from academic year 2023/24 for three years and aims to explore the commodity chains of three iconic heritage artefacts in the Arctic: reindeer antler, the conical tent, and mammoth and walrus ivory.
The project will trace the oral histories and new market and social entanglements of these artefacts across several sites in Sápmi, Canada, and Greenland, linking them to historical pastoralist and hunting lifeways and their transformation over time.
In recent years, each artefact has taken a new form within the heritage and tourism industries:
- reindeer antler as Traditional Chinese Medicine;
- the conical tent as a fixed tourism dwelling;
- and ivory as souvenir carvings.
They thus tell a wider story of Arctic heritage and the relationship between indigenous producers, consumers, and the market.
For more information, visit the ArcHeritage project website.