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Sacred Places in the Arctic and Beyond brings together indigenous and non-indigenous scholars, rightsholders, and practitioners to explore the status and management of sacred places, which are important as both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. It acknowledges the critical functions and roles that sacred places play in connection with local people, traditions, beliefs, and practices, as identity markers, places of cultural transmission and memory, and locations that support ecosystems and biodiversity.
Four chapters present case studies from the Arctic, and four more widen the geographical coverage to North America, South America, Africa and Europe, each describing the cultural contexts and Indigenous cosmologies of sacred places in their respective regions. The studies raise issues of access to sacred places, destruction and disruption caused by extractive industries and tourism, and implications of these challenges for their management. The book concludes with three chapters that call for policy reappraisals. They address the problem of how Western-orientated discourses and organisational structures frame legislation about, and management of, sacred places in ways which are seldom compatible with how Indigenous people understand these places and engage with them. Major themes from the case studies are integrated with ideas from cultural ecology and legal pluralism into a framework to inform future policy.
List of contents
1. Sacred Places in transition. An introduction and organisational framework based on cultural ecology and legal pluralism
Part One: The Arctic 2. Mythical landscapes and sacred natural places in the Arctic North, their exploitation through tourism and inadequate protection 3. Relating to Place: Belonging, Identity and the Sámi People of Giron (Kiruna), Sweden 4. Guided by the Aahka - Indigenous Art as a tool for relating with the Pluriversal reality of Sámi Cosmology 5. The Nenets' sacred places: the life story of the Singing Mountain
Yangania Pe Part Two: Broader Contexts 7. Indigeneity and sacred lands in Pauline Melville's The Ventriloquist's Tale 8. Reconciling the 'Sacred' in 9. Sacred places as Cultural Ecologies: The case of the Uffington White Horse in the English Chalklands
Part Three: New Directions 10. The linguistic complexity of cultural relativity: the idea of a sacred space 11. Legal pluralism, cultural ecology, and protection of sacred places 12. Beyond Borders: How U.S. and German Approaches to Religious Freedom Diverge on Indigenous Sacred Sites 13. Sacred Places. Cultural and existential transitions.
Index
About the author
Francis Joy is a post-doctoral researcher in the Arctic Anthropology Research Team at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. His expertise is in cultural heritage.
Patrick Dillon is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Exeter, UK, and for ten years was Professor in the Philosophical Faculty at the University of Eastern Finland. His expertise is in cultural ecology.
Dawid Bunikowski is Professor at the State University of Applied Sciences in Wloclawek, Poland, and Visiting Scholar in the University of Eastern Finland School of Theology. His expertise is in law.
