Workshop in Nibutani, Japan, May 30 to 31, 2025
In late May, Noor Johnson (ELOKA principal investigator) traveled to Nibutani, Hokkaido, Japan, to help lead a workshop titled “Oral history and Northern Indigenous Collaboration” as part of the Northern Landscapes Repatriation Project. Chie Sakakibara from Syracuse University led the project, with collaboration from University of Colorado Boulder (Noor Johnson) and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (Karen Brewster and Sean Asikłuk Topkok). Together they worked with Ainu community members from Nibutani who are involved in cultural and language revitalization. The workshop focused on repatriating photographs taken by American photographers in the early 1900s, which are currently held in US collections. These photos have been a tool to engage with Ainu knowledge and the impacts of social and environmental change. The ongoing project connects Ainu with Inupiat from the North Slope of Alaska to exchange experiences as northern Indigenous peoples with cultural heritage documentation and revitalization.
On May 30 and 31, the project team led a workshop focusing on oral history, featuring an introduction from Karen Brewster on how to record oral histories and a hands-on session interviewing Ainu Elders. The workshop also featured reflections from Roberta Tuuraq Glenn-Borade, Arlene Akpik, and Kim Kivvaq Pikok from Utqiaġvik (Roberta is the program coordinator for ELOKA partner, Alaska Arctic Observatory and Knowledge Hub [AAOKH], and Kim previously worked with AAOKH when she was a MA student at UAF). Sean Asikłuk Topkok shared dances and drumming and led a dance exchange with an Ainu dance group. Noor Johnson led an activity to solicit and organize information about photographs from the Arnold Genthe collection, taken in Nibutani in 1908 and which are currently held in the US Library of Congress. The Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies at Hokkaido University will host a project website about the photos along with knowledge and exchanges documented as part of the project.
After the US National Science Foundation terminated funding for this project because of “changing priorities” for the foundation, various entities at Syracuse University stepped in to provide funding to support the workshop. Sponsors included: Syracuse University Office of Research, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences, Syracuse University Engaged Humanities Network, and Syracuse University Dept of Geography and the Environment. There is now a strong basis for further collaboration based on the relationships formed during exchanges last summer in Syracuse and this spring in Nibutani. We look forward to continuing this collaboration in the future and will be working together to identify resources to support further exchange.
