Invitation to contribute to the Sami Scientific Journal of the topic on Indigenous and minority language teaching research: Special issue number “Language in School and Learning”

We invite researchers and experts to submit articles for the special issue, edited by Dr. Inker-Anni
Linkola-Aikio, Dr. Berit-Ellen Juuso, and Professor Pigga Keskitalo.

Suggested topics include:

Language Awareness

  • Minority Language Education
  • Indigenous Language Education
  • Second Language Teaching
  • Educational Support
  • Language Teaching Methods
  • Digitization of Language Teaching
  • Language Instruction
  • The Role of Language(s) in Schools or Educational Institutions
  • Language Proficiency in Schools
  • Lifelong Learning
  • Emerging Approaches in Indigenous and Minority Language Education

Abstract Submission:

Submit an abstract (150–200 words) to Inker-Anni Linkola-Aikio at inker-anni.linkola-
aikio(at)ulapland.fi by 28 February 2025. The abstract should outline the research background,
methods, results, and the research significance. Please include your name, email address, and the
institutional affiliation.

Timetable:

  • Abstract Submission: Submit a 150–200-word abstract with a title and five keywords by 28 February 2025.
  • Full Article Submission: The deadline for completed articles is 30 August 2025
  • Peer Review: Articles will undergo peer review, to be completed 21. October 2025.
  • Feedback will be sent to authors shortly after.
  • Final Submission: Finalized articles are due by 15 December 2025 and should belanguage-edited by then.

Articles may be written in Sámi or other languages. For further guidance, contact the special issue
editors.

Additional information on article format requirements can be found on the journal’s website:
 
https://www.dutkansearvi.fi/callinravvagat/ 
https://www.dutkansearvi.fi/kirjoittajille/ 
https://www.dutkansearvi.fi/for-authors/ 
 
Contact information: 

Inker-Anni Linkola-Aikio (inker-anni.linkola-aikio(at)ulapland.fi) 
Berit-Ellen Juuso ( beritej(at)samas.no ) 
Pigga Keskitalo ( pigga.keskitalo(at)ulapland.fi )

The New Board of Dutkansearvi 2024-2025 Calls for New Members and Writers

”We want to have more members and publications in our scientific society”, the new Chair of Board
Meri Mononen-Matias tells when asked about the future of association.

Dutkansearvi is an important scientific source and the only scientific publication in Finland that also
publishes articles in Sámi. We particularly call on the researchers that write scientific articles about
Sámi and other Indigenous or Native Peoples to become members, write and suggest current
themes for our future publications.

Next year we attempt to inspire writers by inviting to our writing retreat in Inari from the 21st of
January to the 25 th of January 2025. We are also planning some hybrid events, in which the
publications are presented and discussed about.”,
Mononen-Matias continues.

Meri Mononen-Matias’ own research is about the Indigenous peoples in Oaxaca, South-West
Mexico, their conflict with the state and about their basic education. Her research interest includes
also the Indigenous peoples and peace, particularly planetary peace.

This research perspective, that has not been noted adequately, was prominent in the Helsinki
University’s Educational Sciences Department’s peace education course in 2023-2024. The course
was built by Mononen-Matias among others and included training the participants. The course was
a supplementary training course for teachers of the basic education and one of the five modules
addressed the Indigenous peoples and peace.

”Peace means to some of the Indigenous peoples balance. Among others Tyuka and Bará people
of the Amazonas dedicate a lot of effort trying to reach and maintain the balance. Our distinguished
and versatile specialists in the course, the Dutkansearvi board member and emerita lecturer Irja
Seurujärvi-Kari and the Oulu University’s Giellagas Institute director Sigga-Marja Magga described
among other things the communality, multi-sensory observation and the nexus with the nature as a
part of being.

Remembering the course still inspires me. “, Mononen-Matias toteaa. ”I am proud and grateful for
this prestigious and important position for which I was chosen by the annual meeting of the
Dutkansearvi association on the 10 th of September, 2024.”
, she continues.

Other members of the new board are Vice-Chairperson Marja-Liisa Olthuis, Jelena Porsanger,
Trond Trosterud, Irja Seurujärvi-Kari ja Pigga Keskitalo. Deputy Members are Kimberli Mäkäräinen,
Miika Lehtinen and Petter Morottaja.

The contact information of the board will be updated at https://www.dutkansearvi.fi/board-
members/

You can contact about ideas for articles the Chairperson Meri Mononen-Matias meri.mononen@helsinki.fi or other members of the board.

Author: Dutkansearvi Board Members

Ongoing call for papers

The Sámi Language and Culture Research Association Dutkansearvi invites you to write scientific articles on various themes. Articles are compiled by thematic issue and published as they are completed. Possible research areas and themes include the following topics:

  • Indigenous research
  • Linguistics
  • Sociolinguistics and language contacts
  • Teaching (we are currently looking for papers for this issue!)
  • Indigenous ethics
  • Revitalization of Sámi languages
  • Sámi language history

In addition to this, you can also propose a new thematic issue or a theme related to Sámi life, languages, culture, history or other aspects of life and community.

Instructions for the format of the articles can be found on our website. Articles will be submitted for peer review. Please note that for teaching articles in particular, there is a separate ongoing writing invitation on our website which explains in more detail what kind of articles and blogs we are looking for.

In addition to scientific articles, we invite people to write blog posts in Sámi. Blog posts can be more informal than scholarly articles and are not submitted for peer review. Blogs are welcome to use visual material for which the author has the necessary rights. Right now, we are especially looking for blog posts about teaching in Sápmi.

Regards / Editorial Board of the Sámi Language and Culture Research Association

Call for papers – Special Issue of Dutkansearvi Dieđalaš Áigečála – Searvedoibma: Art and Social Communities in Sápmi (15.01.2022)

In recent years Sámi art and aesthetics have been invited into majority contexts in hitherto unprecedented ways – from international exhibitions such as documenta 14 in Kassel in 2017 to the Sámi Pavilion at the forthcoming Venice Biennial in 2022. While Sámi art has gained new visibility internationally, this has not necessarily meant that the conditions for making, producing and exhibiting Sámi art and aesthetics in Sápmi on Sámi premises have been strengthened. There are still few Sami-oriented art institutions, and there is still no Sámi art museum. Yet, while formal art institutions are scarce, cultural festivals in Sápmi have long functioned as an important artistic, social and economic infrastructure for the development of the transnational field of Sámi art.

This special issue of Dutkansearvi invites contributions that examine and engage with the conditions for artistic practice and aesthetic engagement in Sápmi, with a special focus on how Sámi art and making practices take part in the creation and production of new communities and publics. The title of the special issue takes its starting point in the Northern Sámi term searvedoaibma as an analytical framework. This North Sami term has no direct Norwegian or Nordic equivalent. In Northern Sami, searvi refers to something one participates in (such as an association or community), while doaibma describe practices of doing or enacting something. Searvedoaibma is in short, an active concept that shifts the focus from understanding community as a noun (as something that already exists), to examine the creation, enactment, and negotiation of communities. By using searvedoaibma as a starting point for this special issue, we seek to emphasize our interest in understanding how art and social communities are made and enacted in dynamic and relational ways, and how art and aesthetic performances might contribute to and challenge these processes (Danbolt, Kramvig, Guttorm & Hætta 2022). Inviting approaches to art and social communities in Sápmi through the concept of searvedoibma is also a way to highlight the importance of working with and developing new Indigenous concepts and tools.

We invite contributions that engage with art and social communities in Sápmi in a variety of forms and formats – from peer-reviewed academic articles (5000-6000 words), shorter essays, commentaries, interviews, dialogues, and reviews – in Sámi languages, English, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or Danish. (For general guidelines for submissions to Dutkansearvi, see https://www.dutkansearvi.fi/for-authors)

Please send abstracts (ca. 100 words) before January 15 2022 to the special issue editors Britt Kramvig (britt.kramvig@uit.no), Hanna E. Guttorm (hanna.guttorm@helsinki.fi), and Mathias Danbolt (danbolt@hum.ku.dk). The deadline for submission for full articles will be April 1 2022.

The special issue is part of the research project “Okta: Kunst og friksjonsfylte felleskap i Sápmi” (2019-2022) [Okta: Art and Communities in Friction], supported by Arts Council Norway and Danish Arts Council. We plan to organize a writing and feedback seminar with the accepted contributors in late February in Romsa/Tromsø on the Norwegian side of Sápmi.

Call for papers – Special issue on Indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage (15.10.2021)

DUTKANSEARVI invites researchers and other experts to write articles in a special issue on Indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage, which will be published in Dutkansearvvi Dieđalaš Áigečála in the beginning of next year. From the perspective of Indigenous peoples, cultural heritage is a holistic concept, which is founded on the material, cultural, and spiritual values and includes the collective, over generationally accumulated knowledge and practices, which are expressed, shared, and (re)lived in language, livelihoods, literature and arts, ceremonies, cosmos, and nature, as well as human and non-human blessings among other things. Cultural heritage is related to the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and their near relations to the land, territories, and natural resources. The articles can deal e. g. with intellectual property and cultural heritage, repatriation and revitalization of the cultural heritage, possible abuse or misinterpretation of cultural heritage, sacred places, clothing and cultural heritage, cultural heritage in connection to traditional livelihoods and the representations of them, cultural heritage in connection to language and representations.

Please send your abstract (100-150 words, preferably in some Sámi language) latest 15.10.2021 and we’ll answer you in couple of days. Manuscript submission by 17.12.2021, after that it will be sent to peer review. This time we prefer articles in Sámi languages as so many earlier issues have been published in English. Issue will be edited by Hanna Guttorm and Irja Seurujärvi-Kari. Please send your abstract and articles to hanna.guttorm@helsinki.fi and irja.seurujarvi@gmail.com.

Ongoing call for papers

The Sámi Language and Culture Research Association Dutkansearvi invites you to write scientific articles on various themes. Articles are compiled by thematic issue and published as they are completed. Possible research areas and themes include the following topics:

  • Indigenous research
  • Linguistics
  • Sociolinguistics and language contacts
  • Teaching (we are currently looking for papers for this issue!)
  • Indigenous ethics
  • Revitalization of Sámi languages
  • Sámi language history

In addition to this, you can also propose a new thematic issue or a theme related to Sámi life, languages, culture, history or other aspects of life and community.

Instructions for the format of the articles can be found on our website. Articles will be submitted for peer review. Please note that for teaching articles in particular, there is a separate ongoing writing invitation on our website which explains in more detail what kind of articles and blogs we are looking for.

In addition to scientific articles, we invite people to write blog posts in Sámi. Blog posts can be more informal than scholarly articles and are not submitted for peer review. Blogs are welcome to use visual material for which the author has the necessary rights. Right now, we are especially looking for blog posts about teaching in Sápmi.

Regards / Editorial Board of the Sámi Language and Culture Research Association

Call for papers – TEACHING, DIDACTICS AND PEDAGOGY IN SÁPMI

Ongoing writing invitation for a thematic issue focusing on didactics and teaching in Sápmi from different perspectives. Particular emphasis is placed on language and culture teaching, models, case studies, ongoing projects in schools, teaching materials and other issues related to didactics. In this context, didactics refers to a broader concept of teaching that addresses the questions WHAT, WHY and HOW. The thematic issue will include articles on both language teaching and cultural education as well as the teaching of other related content. The texts may focus on the Sámi language and its teaching, teaching in the Sámi language or teaching that deals with Sámi related content in, for example, majority schools, kindergartens, higher education institutions or, for example, vocational schools. The research association invites scientific articles for peer-review, as well as freelance blog posts that are more free-form and do not need to be peer-reviewed. The articles in the thematic issue will be published as they are completed. Possible topics are:

  • models and practices of language teaching
  • models and practices of cultural education
  • case study in schools (e.g. language immersion and distance learning)
  • teachers’ experiences
  • students’ experiences
  • good and worse ways of working
  • new models
  • indigenous didactics in Sámi schools / Sámi didactics in majority schools
  • or other current topics in the field of didactics

Hanna Outakoski is responsible for the special issue. Abstracts (100-150 words) should be sent to hanna.outakoski@umu.se as soon as possible. Please write “Dutkansearvi” as the subject line of the email. We also ask you to write your contact information at the top of the abstract: author (s), institution / department / university / department, and your own email address.

You will be notified of abstract approval within a few weeks. The abstract can be written in any Sámi language, Finnish, English, Swedish or Norwegian. It would be ideal if the final version of your article would be written in Sámi, but if necessary, we also accept texts in other languages. Publications written in Sámi language about didactics are still very few, and so we encourage the articles to be written in Sámi. The authors should take care of the correcting the spelling before the article goes for peer review or the blog is published. The editor-in-chief of the journal checks the spelling of scientific articles before peer review to ensure that it corresponds to the language level of the scientific publication. For more information on formal style issues, visit the research association’s website. Completed articles and blogs should be sent to the address above.