Workshop on Indigenous Perspectives and Linguistic Practices Relevant to Wellness

University Of Alaska Southeast Juneau Campus, Juneau AK

Investigators

Abstract

Documenting the language of a given speech community includes recording the knowledge held by elders and traditional healers regarding physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Importantly, documenting these linguistic practices can increase the scientific understanding of factors important to health and wellbeing, including illness preventions and remedies, healing practices, and perspectives on how to live a healthy life. Native American and Alaska Native communities show a well-documented, major gap in wellbeing measures when comparing these communities and non-Native Americans. This award will fund a workshop that brings together community members and other researchers and experts from diverse backgrounds to explore these issues surrounding wellbeing and to present their findings. Better health outcomes for Alaska Native communities serve the national interest by reducing health inequities. Project activities will broaden participation by underrepresented groups of all ages in the social sciences, including involving high school and university students, some of whom will be trained in video documentation. The conference presentations will be available to the general public and other academics by sharing the recordings online. Sharing Our Knowledge workshops have been held since 1993, bringing together Native and non-Native Tlingit researchers to present their work to a diverse audience. These workshops have been an important bridge between academics and indigenous community members. The Tlingit people have traditionally inhabited coastal Alaska and the contiguous interior of Yukon and British Columbia, and Tlingit is a severely threatened language, with 80 fluent first language speakers and many avid second language learners. The Native American Languages Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1990, enacted into policy the recognition of the unique status and importance of Native American languages. These workshops serve as a forum conducive to the production, sharing and documentation of Tlingit knowledge and language. The 10th Sharing Our Knowledge workshop will occur in 2017 and the focus on wellbeing will encompass research presentations on the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and economic wellbeing for individuals and communities. Workshop discussions include the multi-generational impacts on Tlingit health due to colonization and the documentation of the wellness teachings deeply embedded in the Tlingit language. Impressionistically speaking, for those who have witnessed the renaissance of Alaska Native traditions and languages, such cultural affinities seem to have improved the wellness of Alaska Natives. Workshop results will also add to the growing literature regarding the positive interactions between indigenous languages and cultures and wellbeing. The workshop will have broad impact, and will offer opportunities to cross traditional academic boundaries including health, biology, traditional ecological knowledge, archaeology, linguistics, museum studies, cultural anthropology, education, ethnohistory, art, music, and indigenous law. Project results will be archived and accessible at the Sealaska Heritage Institute Archive and at the Alaska State Library Historical Collections Archives.