RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR
SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
Ways of Speaking, Ways of Knowing: the ethnolinguistic Identity of the Inugguit
Dr Stephen Leonard, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Wednesday 13 March at 5.30 pm
Through examining ways of speaking and ways of knowing, it is possible to gain insights into a group’s cultural assumptions about language. Within the framework of the Ethnography of Speaking, this has typically been done by focusing on performance. This paper takes a different approach and aims to capture a remote Inuit group’s ‘experience or value’ of language. By triangulating the methods of linguistics, phenomenology and anthropology, an attempt is made at outlining some of the features of their ethnolinguistic identity in order to see how they articulate their intuitions of social belonging. At a time of rapid environmental change in the Arctic, the question is asked of whether this group’s ethnolinguistic identity might be under threat by new cosmologies and a creeping globalisation of consciousness.
This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to http://leonard.eventbrite.co.uk
