Without land we are lost: traditional knowledge, digital technology and power relations

• Published in: AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples
• Main Author: Kuoljok, Kajsa
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2019
• Subjects: History; Anthropology; Cultural Studies; reindeer husbandry
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1177180119890134; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1177180119890134; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/1177180119890134

This study examines use of digital transferred knowledge within husbandry based on interviews and literature studies. Traditional knowledge is the base of husbandry. In husbandry today, this knowledge is combined with the digitally transferred knowledge through the use of the global positioning system collar. Husbandry never operates in isolation from other actors but interacts and is affected by multiple stakeholders and by regulatory practices regulations. The digital data can, besides being used in everyday practice, also be incorporated in reindeer husbandry plans. Reindeer husbandry plans is a tool for obtaining information of land use in husbandry in communication with other land users, but it is also a tool for operational reindeer management for the communities. The reindeer use of grazing land can through the data from the global positioning system collar create “hard facts” used for aspirations of power in discussions over land use.