"The Arctic Congress 2024, held in the beautiful Buvvda/ Bådåddjo in the Pite and Julev Sámi ancestral grounds was an inspiring experience that gave me a lot to reflect on.
I am Northern Sámi language master’s student with a broad interest in cultural heritage and sociology, to mention a few. Being raised in Sámi culture with a holistic worldview has shaped my academic interests towards indigenous and social issues in a way that crosses fields of study. At times it has felt challenging to implement all of this into somewhat strict academic framework. By attending to the congress, I was hoping to exchange ideas and experiences with fellow students and researchers to gain new ideas on how to conjoin different approaches in my master’s thesis. I was also curious to learn about the state of Arctic research and academic field in general.
This year’s Arctic Congress combined three different conferences. This highlighted the importance of coming together across disciplines and offered an invaluable opportunity to learn about various aspects of Arctic research. I found myself having conversations about geoengineering, learning about recent climate change research, being mesmerized by art and even attending a pubinar on geopolitics, to mention a few. Meeting other participants truly gave me an insight into the diverse career paths, as well as the challenges and opportunities regarding Arctic research. This year’s congress also included many indigenous related topics from linguistics to social studies. Learning from fellow arctic indigenous people and experiencing the connection felt very empowering. However, I did notice an unfortunate lack of indigenous people representing the projects that were based on indigenous communities and indigenous knowledge. Indigenous presence should be the focus of all academic institutions and institutions are expected to take responsibility and provide opportunities and spaces for people, whose knowledge has been extracted for the purposes of western science, but who have been excluded from academia for too long.
All in all, I am grateful for the opportunity to attend the Arctic Congress and hope that UArctic continues to create possibilities, such as travel grants, that allow the participation of indigenous students as well as students across all socioeconomical backgrounds."