Meaning or presence? Ways of knowing of the Sámi yoik
Abstract This article approaches an Indigenous singing tradition, the yoik, practiced by the Sámi people in the north of Europe, as a way of knowing the environment through presence rather than meaning. The yoik consists of short unaccompanied melodies, often without lyrics, sung in everyday life, a...
| Published in: | American Anthropologist |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2022
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/aman.13742 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/aman.13742 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1111/aman.13742 https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/aman.13742 |
| Summary: | Abstract This article approaches an Indigenous singing tradition, the yoik, practiced by the Sámi people in the north of Europe, as a way of knowing the environment through presence rather than meaning. The yoik consists of short unaccompanied melodies, often without lyrics, sung in everyday life, associated with a specific being (typically a person, an animal, or a place), and intended to make that being present. By exploring this capacity to invoke and intensify the environment's presence, this article seeks to take the yoik seriously and thereby offer a counternarrative to both semiotic and logocentric understandings of knowledge and human/nonhuman relationships. [ knowledge, singing, semiotics, nonhuman, Sámi ] |
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