Contributors

Chisato Abe worked for the Ainu Association of Hokkaidō for years. She has spared no effort in distributing accurate information on the rights of the Ainu and Ainu culture to the public through many channels, in cooperation with Ainu and Japanese peoples.

Mattias Berglund is my name and I have worked as a business developer, project manager and economist for 10 years. I have been an entrepreneur for many years now and I am driven by the objective to change and make society and industry more efficient, attractive and sustainable. For a long time in my professional life I have been working with the Sámi industries, in various forms such as web projects, investigations, accounting, business consulting, events and as a Sámi handicrafts consultant. My last big event was the Sápmi Awards in Jåhkåmåhkke/Jokkmokk in June 2014 and I also managed it the previous year.

Mu namma lea Mattias Berglund ja lean juo logi jagi bargan gávppašanovddideaddjin, prošeaktajođiheaddjin ja ekonoman. Mus lea fitnodat ja lean bargan entreprenevran máŋggaid jagiid ja jođihuvvon dáhtuin rievdadit ja dahkat servodaga ja ealáhuseallima beaktileappot, bivnnuhut ja guhkesáigásaččat bistevaš. Stuorra oasis mu ámmátdoaimmalaš eallimis mon lean bargan sámi ealáhuseallimis máŋgga hámiin nugo webbaprošeavttat, guorahallamat, rehketdoallu, fitnodatbagadallan, doalut ja sámiduodjekonsuleantan. Mu maŋemus stuorit doallu leai Sápmi Awards Jåhkåmåhkes geassemánus 2014 ja maid jagi ovdal.

Coppélie Cocq is an ethnologist and Associate Professor in Sámi Studies, Humlab, Umeå University, Sweden. Her research interests lie in the fields of folklore studies and digital humanities, with specific focuses on storytelling and revitalisation in Indigenous contexts.

Jeff Gayman has a Doctoral Degree in Education from Kyushu University, and is currently employed by Hokkaidō University, with a joint appointment in the School of Education and the Research Faculty of Media and Communication. Since coming to this post, he has devoted his efforts to strengthening the Ainu presence in Hokkaidō University research and education initiatives, including having held two international symposiums to address the issue of repatriating Ainu ancestral remains held by Hokkaidō University.

Leena Huss is Professor Emerita of Finnish at Uppsala University, The Hugo Valentin Centre, Sweden, and she has also worked at the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø. Her main research interests are Nordic minority and minority language policies, Finno–Ugric minority languages, multilingualism, language maintenance and linguistic revitalisation.

Kouichi Kaizawa is founder of the Cikornay National Trust, former Visiting Professor at Muroran Institute of Technology, and the president of Biratori Ainu Culture Preservation Association. He was also one of two plaintiffs in the Nibutani Dam case and is currently a committee member of the Permanent Indigenous Peoples Committee for Forest Stewardship.

Chris Kolbu has more than a decade’s experience in the coffee industry as a barista, coffee roaster and writer. Norwegian by birth, he now lives in Melbourne, Australia with his young family. He works as a software developer.

Yōsuke Kosaka is a Senior Editorial Writer at the Hokkaido Shimbun, a daily newspaper covering Hokkaidō, and former curator of the Ainu Museum. He has many publications on a range of topics from international relations, post-nuclear policies, to the Ainu in the Northern Kurile Islands.

David Kroik is a PhD candidate in Language Teaching and Learning at Umeå University and an assistant professor in South Saami at Nord University. His research focuses on South Saami as a language in school. He is involved in developing a teacher education program for Sámi language teachers. Kroik completed a Licentiate degree in Linguistics in 2016. He has a broad interest in language, which includes the structure of language as well as language revitalisation. Kroik learned South Saami, his heritage language, as an adult and he is dedicated to making the language available to others.

Jenny Kroik is a New York city-based illustrator. She was born in St Petersburg, Russia, and grew up in Israel. She received a BFA in illustration from the Art Institute of Boston, and an MFA in painting from the University of Oregon. She has been working as a freelance illustrator since 2007, and as a university art instructor for the last 10 years. Jenny has created two covers for the New Yorker Magazine, and has also exhibited paintings in galleries around the US.

Åsa Virdi Kroik is a South Saami woman who grew up in the small village of Buarkantjahke on the Swedish side of Saepmie. She took her academic education in Uppsala and Stuehkie (Stockholm). Writing is something she has spent much time doing and she has published books and articles, lyrics and poetry of all kinds. She has also worked coordinating local, regional and international projects and her motivation has always been to benefit her people and other Indigenous peoples all over the world, as she feels we have a lot to win by helping each other. Activism comes with being an Indigenous person with the motivation to survive, and she has been forced to learn activist methods to get her voice heard. She greatly enjoys spending time with Indigenous people and, without stress or other disturbances, to be able to listen to their stories and learn their knowledge, as well as sharing the same with them. She also likes to take whatever comes from that moment, and reshape it in a way to make it possible for others to get a part of it.

Jenny Virdi Kroik is a 15-year-old teenager. She is learning South Saami language in school and is still friends with the others who joined her on the trip to the mountaintop which her paper in this book is about. She lives in three worlds—urban, where her life is about school, friends and teachers; South Saami, where life is about relatives, dogs, reindeer and competences yet to get hold of; and India, where life is about her father’s home in New Delhi, relatives and suits. This is her debut as an author but she has previously been a model in one of her mother’s (Åsa) books.

Ewa Ljungdahl has a master’s degree in archaeology and is employed by the South Saami centre Gaaltije in Östersund. She has documented the Saami landscape together with members of Saami villages in the south part of Saepmie over the course of many years. She currently spends most of her time writing and lecturing.

Miku Maeda is a master’s student of Interpretation and Translation Studies at the Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaidō University. She facilitated conversation between international Indigenous and Ainu artists at the 2017 Indigenous Art Workshop in Sapporo as an interpreter.

Tero Mustonen is a fisher from North Karelia, Finland. He also works at the Snowchange Cooperative (www.snowchange.org) as a researcher. He is one of the lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report.

Markus Nyström has an academic background in sustainable development and environmental history. Though he lives in the south of Sweden, through his activism and academic works he has focused on issues concerning the Swedish north and its Indigenous population, the Saami. For the last few years, Markus has worked as a professional historical bowyer (someone who makes bows).

Hanna Outakoski is Senior Lecturer at Umeå University in Northern Sweden. She is Sámi from Finnish Sápmi and has been a North Sámi language teacher at Umeå University since 2001. Her main research interests lie primarily in the areas of multilingual literacy, Indigenous didactics and pedagogy, and augmented learning in heritage language situations. In her latest research project, Outakoski investigates how schools can support writing in Indigenous languages.

Filosofiija doavttir Hanna Outakoski lea vuosttaš amanueansa oahpaheaddji Ubmi universitehtas Davvi-Ruoŧas. Son lea sápmelaš gean ruohttasat leat Sámis Suoma bealde ráji ja son lea leamašan sámegieloahpaheaddji Ubmi universiteahtas jagis 2001. Su guovddáš dutkanberoštumit leat máŋggagielat čálamáhttu, eamiálbmot didaktihkka ja pedagogihkka, ja dasa lassin oahppama nanosmahttin eamiálbmot konteavsttain. Su maŋimuš prošeavttas son dutká mo skuvllat sáhttet nannet čállima eamiálbmotgielain.

Nils-Jonas Persson was born and raised in a reindeer-herding family in Geavtse (Amarnäs). He has worked at many different jobs. He was educated at the Sámij åhpadusguovdásj (Sami Training Centre) in Dálvvadis where he chose the program for craft in hard material (such as wood and antler) and has been practising those skills ever since, as much as possible. He slipped into dance during his time studying at the Sami Training Centre, and has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest as a dancer, and before that also held several minor dance courses for Sami youngsters. He is passionate about reindeer herding and Sami rights. He occupies himself with test-driving cars during the winter season, and currently works in the timber industry. He has a general interest in outdoor activities, and enjoys being with his family, the mountains, and reindeer—this is what makes him feel whole.

Chris Pesklo is of Sami ancestry from the areas of Tromsø and Nordland in Norway, and Jämtland in Sweden. His family came to the USA in the 1930s. Chris is a member of the Norwegian–American Bygdelagenes Fellesraad and is the Lappmark Lag Genealogist for that organisation. He is also an active member and supporter of the Sami Siidda of North America, the Sami Cultural Center in Duluth, Minnesota, and a past contributor to the Arran Newsletter and Báiki: The North American Sámi Journal. Chris is a licensed social studies teacher, a beekeeper and an ‘urban Sami’ living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He learnt lavvu-making from his Sami Elders and friends.

Gerald Roche is an anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and Philosophy at La Trobe University. He was previously a DECRA Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, and a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Uppsala University’s Hugo Valentin Centre. His research focuses on the politics of language endangerment and revitalisation, with a regional focus on Tibet. Gerald previously lived on the northeast Tibetan Plateau from 2005 to 2013, working as an applied anthropologist, and also undertaking research for his PhD in Asian Studies from Griffith University. As an applied anthropologist, he has collaborated with people in Tibet on various educational and cultural initiatives, including the creation of the world’s largest online archive of oral traditions from the Tibetan Plateau, and the publication of the first nationally distributed English language textbooks designed specifically for Tibetans. His academic publications have appeared in the Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Modern Asian Studies, China Quarterly, International Journal for the Sociology of Language, Anthropos and Asian Ethnicity, amongst others. He recently coedited the Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization with Leanne Hinton and Leena Huss.

Oscar Sedholm is a sociology master, politician, rock musician and writer. During the writing of this book he was employed as a project developer at Såhkie Umeå Sami Association and was actively working with finding new ways to preserve and teach Ume Sami. He is currently party secretary for the largest party in the Sami Parliament, the Party for Hunting and Fishing Sami (Jakt- och Fiskesamerna) and is also employed as political secretary for the Social Democrats of Umeå.

Yuji Shimizu is co-chair of the Hokkaidō University Information Research Disclosure Group, Chairperson of the Kotan Association, Chairperson of the Citizens’ Roundtable for Ethnic Education and Special Advisor to the Citizens’ Alliance for the Examination of Ainu Policy.

Mana Shinoda is a dancer in the Ainu tradition at Akanko Ainu Theatre ‘Ikor’ in Hokkaidō. In April 2015, she addressed the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, speaking about the emergence of hate speech against the Ainu and so forth.

Sigrid Stångberg, or Sagka, the Saami name she is more widely known under, has worked as a language revivalist, activist and a principal of a Saami school during her lifetime. She has also held many important positions in Saami society and continues to do so, despite being retired.

Ryoko Tahara is the deputy director of the Sapporo Ainu Association and founder and chief director of the Ainu Women’s Association. She has been devoted to tackling Ainu women’s issues, which were hidden prior to her campaign.

Masumi Tanaka trained as a museum curator. She previously worked for the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, in Rovaniemi Finland. Currently, she works as an administrator at the Nibutani Ainu Cultural Museum.

Nobuko Tsuda is the first Ainu woman to receive a doctorate. At the age of 69, she wrote her dissertation on Ainu clothing culture. Before that, she had been engaged in Ainu embroidery as a curator at the Hokkaidō Ainu Center in Sapporo for more than two decades.

Shizue Ukaji is the founder and chief director of the Tokyo Ainu Association. She has taken the lead in campaigning for the rights of the Ainu in Tokyo, and has made a significant contribution to the maintenance and development of Ainu culture.

Kanako Uzawa is a PhD Candidate at the Arctic University of Norway where she focuses on urban Indigeneity in Ainu communities in Japan. Kanako is an editorial board member of AlterNative in New Zealand, a member of the Association of Rera in Tokyo, a former intern in the Project to Promote ILO Policy on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (PRO 169) at the International Labour Organization, Geneva Switzerland.

Anne Wuolab was born just south of Narvik, in northern Norway. These days, she is based in Lycksele, Sweden, on a homestead where she lives with her husband, two children, a dog, a cat, and reindeer. Anne is a cultural entrepreneur with a wealth of local coffee knowledge.