Talanoa dialogues. Finding homes and re-enchantments

This text is a narration on belonging, liminality, and mobility across spaces of identity and disciplinary boundaries. I participated in the writing retreat at Gilbbesjávri/Kilpijärvi as I was in the process of rethinking and possibly changing homes, both physically and in disciplinary terms. In that communal space of reflection and writing, it was important to know more about the daily struggles of Sámi and other Indigenous peoples, and the epistemic, ontological and political reconstruction in which they are involved. This made me reflect on current struggles in my original place, Venice and its lagoon, whose environment and early settlers’ traditional livelihoods are seriously endangered by economic speculative activities. Does it make sense, nowadays, to conceptualize a possible coexistence of diverse forms of living there, a non-Indigenous territory, through methodologies of research and action offered by Indigenous studies?