Meaning or presence? Ways of knowing of the Sámi yoik

• Published in: American Anthropologist
• Main Author: Aubinet, Stéphane
• Other Authors: Universitetet i Oslo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2022
• Subjects: Sámi
• 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

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 ]