Robert Brave Heart Sr. is Executive Vice President at Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
Harald Gaski is Professor in Sámi Culture and Literature at Sámi allaskuvla / Sámi University of applied sciences and at UiT The Arctic University in Norway. He is born in Deatnu (Tana) and is the author and editor of several books on Sámi literature and culture. He has also translated Sámi literature and Nils-Aslak Valkeapää poetry into Norwegian and English. Gaski has been a visiting scholar at several universities internationally, and is very much in demand as a speaker on Sámi issues. He served on the International Research Advisory Panel of New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence for 10 years. Gaski’s research specializes on Indigenous methodologies and Sámi culture and literature. Gaski has been instrumental in establishing Sami literature as an academic field. In 2006 he was awarded the The Nordic Sami Language Prize, Gollegiella, and in 2015 Gaski was the recipient of Vaartoe /Cesam's research award at the University of Umeå in Sweden.
Ekaterina Gruzdeva is a University Lecturer and a Docent in General Linguistics at the Department of Languages, University of Helsinki. In 2019-2021, she works as a University Researcher at the Collegium for Advanced Studies. Her current project is aimed at producing a comprehensive grammar of the Nivkh language. She is also interested in areal typology, sociolinguistics, language contacts, language obsolescence, revitalization, etc.
Gunvor Guttorm is Professor in duodji (e.g., Sámi arts and crafts, traditional art, applied art) at the Sámi University College of Applied Sciences in Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway. She has long experience teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in “duodji”, both practically and theoretically. Guttorm has not only written several books and articles on the dynamicity of Sámi art and craft, but also participated in exhibitions in Sápmi and abroad. Her latest book, Duodjáris duojárat : duddjon ealiha duodjedigaštallama : artihkkalčoakkáldat, has shown the connections between duodji, language, Indigenous knowledge, and social relations.
Dr. Mere Kepa is a public academic and a socio-cultural innovator who works to inspire a new vision of later life. Mere is a published writer, editor, and peer reviewer; a project convener, creative director, curator, and a consultant researcher in Education, Gerontology and Ageing Well, and Environmental research including pest animal and plant management, and Tourism. In this presentation, she will inspire a new vision of making art and doing gardens on public land through a series of projects being undertaken, in the countryside, in the sub-tropical north of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Mere will contribute successfully to scholarship deepening a concept of coexistence or collaboration among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
Linita Manu'atu is a senior lecturer in education at AUT University. Prior to that, she was a teacher of science, mathematics, economics, and English and Tongan to international migrants. Manu’atu´s research focuses on cultural diversity and language education. Her edited volumes include, among others Home: Here to stay (2014, Huia), co-edited with Mere Kepa and Marilyn McPherson
Daniel Munduruku is Indigenous writer, graduated in Philosophy, with a degree in History and Psychology. He holds a PhD in Education at the University of São Paulo, Post-doctorate in Linguistics at the Federal University of São Carlos - UFSCar. Munduruku is also President Director of the UKA Institute - House of Ancestral Knowledge (Casa dos Saberes Ancestrais).
Author of 52 books for children, youth and education, Munduruku has been a Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit of the Presidency of the Republic (Comendador da Ordem do Mérito Cultural da Presidência da República) since 2008. In 2013 he received the same honor in the Grand Cross category, the most important official honor to a Brazilian citizen in the area of culture. He is Founding Member of the Lorraine Academy of Letters.
Munduruku has received several awards in Brazil and abroad, including Prêmio Jabuti de Literatura (Jabuti Literature Prize) (2004), Prize of the National Foundation for Children and Young People's Books (Fundação Nacional para o Livro Infantil e Juvenil) (FNLIJ) (2005), Prize of the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Literature), Honorable Mention in the UNESCO Prize for Children's and Young People's Literature in the Service of Tolerance (2003), Érico Vannucci Mendes Prize, of the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico). Many of his books have received the Highly Recommended seal awarded by the Brazilian National Children's and Youth Book Foundation (FNLIJ). In 2017 Munduruku received the Jabuti Prize for his book for young adults Vozes ancenstrais. Dez contos indígenas (2016). Munduruku received the Bunge Foundation Award for his work and cultural performance, in 2018.
Victoria Soyan Peemot is a journalist, ethnographer, and Ph.D. student in cultural studies at the University of Helsinki. Raised by her grandparents in the Tyva Republic, she spent her youth riding horses and herding livestock on the Inner Asian steppe. She takes a critical approach to these experiences in her doctoral research, which examines the complexity of bonds connecting horses and herders in the Sayan-Altai Mountain Region of Russia and Mongolia. Victoria also studies cross-cultural encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples in pre-revolutionary Siberia. She actively publishes articles about her research, organises exhibitions, and manages an online course entitled Learn Tyva Language and Culture with Songs
Jelena Porsanger is a Skolt Sámi scholar with Doctoral degree in the history of religion and indigenous research from the University of Tromsø (Norway), and a degree of Licentiate in philosophy from the University of Helsinki (Finland). She previously worked as Rector of Sámi University of Applied Sciences. She works now at Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat, the Sámi Museum in Karasjok, and is affiliated to the University of Helsinki, Indigenous Studies Program. Porsanger is currently a member of the international Editorial Board of AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. She is currently involved in the Skolt Sámi scientific and artistic project aimed at creating an interactive database of the Eastern Sámi cultural heritage and history, funded by the Kone foundation.
Katarina Pirak Sikku is a sámi artist and photographer from Sweden. 2015 Pirak Sikku was nominated for Dagens Nyheter Culture Award for her exhibition Nammaláhpán. In her work, she has focused on the effects of colonization among the Sámi people.
Inga Ravna Eira is Sámi writer, translator and teacher from Norway. Her work includes peoms, short stories and children’s books, as well as performances with other artists. Inga Ravna Eira's anthology Ii dát leat dat eana, Davvi Girji, 2018 is nominated for the 2019 Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Stef Spronck (PhD Australian National University) is a linguist with a particular interest in the grammatical structures languages use to talk about language. He has worked in Aboriginal Australia for over 10 years, mainly collaborating with Ngarinyin people of the Kimberley region. He is currently a postdoc within the Helsinki University Humanities programme.
Taina Tautakitaki is a Tongan born woman raised by her grandparents in Fiji. She attended primary in Tongatapu, Tonga then migrate to New Zealand to complete her high school education. Taina graduated with a Bachelor in Pasifika Education - ECE Teaching from the Auckland University of Technology, in 2015 and is now a registered teacher in New Zealand. Previously she was the manager for Enriching Otara Early Learning Centre, 2016 - 2018. Taina is currently in postgraduate study for Applied finance and is a Finance Manager for Enriching Pasifika Whānau Group & 'Api Fakakoloa Educational Services.
Marina Temina is a Docent at the Department of Theory and Methodology of Education of Khabarovsk Regional Institute for Educational Development, Russian Federation. She defended her PhD on Nivkh bear festival in Vladivostok State University in 2006. Her research interests are connected with the Nivkh history, culture and language. She is also a specialist in education and an author of several Nivkh textbooks and study guides.
Alexey Tsykarev serves as chair of the Center for Support of Indigenous Peoples and Civic Diplomacy «Young Karelia», an NGO recognized with special consultative status by United Nations Economic and Social Council. A lifetime activist for the rights of indigenous peoples in Russia, Tsykarev previously led the International Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples, and has served as an independent expert in several United Nations capacities.
Tsykarev is a former Member and Chairperson-Rapporteur of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a subsidiary body of the UN Human Rights Council. He also served on the International Steering Committee for the UN’s 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, led by UNESCO. Tsykarev holds a Master of Linguistics from Petrozavodsk State University, in Russia, and his academic publications focus on indigenous peoples’ rights, particularly in the areas of language and culture. In Spring 2019, he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Colorado in the United States. Most recently, Tsykarev was appointed by the United Nations Economic and Social Council to serve as Member of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for a three-year term starting on 1 January, 2020.
Anthony K. Webster is Professor of Anthropology, affiliate of the Native American Indigenous Studies Program and associated faculty in Linguistics at the University Texas in Austin, USA. Webster has specialized in Navajo poetry and poetics as well as verbal art more generally. His area of interest comprises linguistic anthropology, especially acoustemology, language change, language contact, aesthetics, and linguistic and social inequalities. In addition to numerous articles, his publications include Explorations in Navajo Poetry and Poetics (UNM Press, 2009), Intimate Grammars: An Ethnography of Navajo Poetry (UofArizona Press, 2015), The Legacy of Dell Hymes: Ethnopoetics, Narrative Inequality and Voice with Paul Kroskrity (Indiana University Press, 2015) and The Sounds of Navajo Poetry: A Humanities of Speaking (Peter Lang, 2018).