HG-Edu Workshop 2019, Tromsø

Hunter Gatherer Education: Directions for Research and Advocacy

24-25 September 2019, Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø.

Workshop announcement and registration here 

This 2-day workshop focused on the educational challenges faced by hunters and gatherers and post-foragers. While such groups share the struggles of other indigenous peoples, they also face particular difficulties related to small group size, egalitarian social structures, habitation in very remote locations, and extremely marginal social status; most groups are also currently experiencing rapid loss of territory and autonomy. The educational aspects of the challenges faced by hunter-gatherer groups, the ways that education connects with issues of land, culture, and livelihood, and the relevance of traditional knowledge and educational strategies were discussed and outlined at the HG-EDU workshop held at the CHAGS conference.

Taking these global patterns and discussions as a point of departure, this workshop invited papers addressing both specific local cases of hunters and gatherers and their educational situations, and international aspects of this issue. An overarching question was how research can contribute to educational self-determination for hunter-gatherer communities. What kinds of research are needed, and how can researchers collaborate with hunter-gatherer communities to further their own educational aspirations? What choices are communities and individuals making about education, and what resources are available to support them? What are the current educational options for hunter-gatherer communities, and how do these relate to livelihood opportunities? What is the relationship between the extremely local dilemmas faced by small hunter-gatherer communities, and the large-scale global driving forces that affect them (including economic development; mining other large-scale industries and projects; global education campaigns)? Where is research and advocacy best targeted?

A concluding session of the workshop will determined the next steps and future activities for the research and advocacy group HG-EDU.

Keynote speakers for this workshop were Marilyn Ngales from Lyceum of the Phillipines University in Manila, and Edmond Dounias from the Institute de Recherche pour le Développement.

This workshop followed the establishment of the Research and Advocacy Group on Hunter-Gatherer Education (HG-EDU), launched at the Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies (CHAGS) in July 2018. An important aim of this group is to use research-based understanding to contribute to educational self-determination for hunter-gatherer communities (see the working statement for the group here).

The Workshop was hosted by the Social Anthropology section of the Institute of Social Sciences, UiT and the Research Group on Comparative Indigeneity (KURF).

The two-day workshop was held in conjunction with the International Conference on Indigeneity and Education (26-27 September 2019, hosted by the Centre for Sami Studies) which included a panel presenting the issues discussed at the Hunter Gatherer Education workshop.