Home, Hearh and Household in the Circumpolar North

This BOREAS project is made up of five participating projects from Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United States and includes one associate project from the United Kingdom. The team will conduct primary research
in Canada?s Northwest Territories, in Northern Sweden, Finland and Norway, in the Kola Peninsula, Taimyr, and Zabaikal?e within Russia, and in the National Museum of the American Indian [NMAI] in the USA. The research programme proceeds by the active participation of Tlicho (Dogrib) Dene, Inuvialuit, Dolgan, Evenki, and Sámi experts. This full proposal includes a new Finnish IP specifically designed to address a concern of the BOREAS panel that a wider range of methods be included to make the cultural signature of ephemeral tent structures more visible. Also, in reply to comments from the NFR, we have added full stipends for a post-doctoral fellow and a PhD student within the Norwegian IP.
This project will place the focal metaphors of hearth, home and household at the centre of a research agenda to understand northern ecological narrative, cultural resilience, and the use of space. Through uniting the efforts of indigenous people, museum researchers, archaeologists, anthropologists, and historical demographers, we aim to demonstrate the special dynamics of northern households, broadly defined, as well as contribute to the revival of cultural awareness now underway in indigenous societies across the North.