Conference: Sharing Our Knowledge: Indigenous Language and Sovereignty

Outer Coast, Sitka AK

Investigators

Abstract

For 30 years, the Sharing Our Knowledge Conference has been a key gathering place for the study of Native languages and cultures. The conference brings together non-Indigenous and Indigenous academics, Indigenous tradition bearers, and community members for three days of events. The conference features presentations, discussions, performances and workshops. Above all, the gathering provides a forum for speaking and studying three highly endangered languages. Many of the remaining birth speakers of these languages attend the conference, and many learners, linguists, and language/culture revitalization activists come to share their findings and as well as to speak and hear Native languages. This conference is a major site for preserving, discussing, and speaking these three languages, as well as exploring the complex philosophical and spiritual heritage that lives within them. The Sharing Our Knowledge Conference offers a unique model for both a conference and for endangered language documentation. The conference is Indigenous-led and community-oriented. It allows for academics and Native tradition bearers to meet each other on respectful and equal footing. It also creates a space where Native language and Native culture are publicly honored and provides a forum where the unique worldview of these languages—their ecological knowledge, their deep historical memory for changes across landscapes, as well as their rich artistic, spiritual and intellectual heritage—are explored and discussed from multiple points of view. This conference looks long-term at how tribal education, government, and sovereignty can help maintain these languages and the sustainable worldview they contain. All the proceedings are video recorded, leaving a lasting archive of research, cultural performance, and public speaking in Indigenous languages. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.