Áile Aikio to deliver keynote on Sámi temporalities at the Nord Conference for Sámi and Indigenous People

Our researcher Áile Aikio (University of Lapland) will be among the keynote speakers at the Nord Conference for Sámi and Indigenous People 2026, held at Bodø Campus of the Nord University, Norway, from 13 to 15 October 2026. This year’s conference theme “Old Roots, New Pathways” brings together scholars, students, practitioners and community members to discuss Sámi and Indigenous perspectives, knowledge systems, and futures.

In her keynote lecture “Áigasaš duodji: Duodji as a Sámi Practice of Time”, Aikio examines duodji (traditional Sámi craft and knowledge practices) as a cultural and societal practice through which relationships between generations, local environments, materials, human and other-than-human beings, and knowledge traditions are maintained and renewed.

Drawing on her research on Sámi cultural heritage, decolonisation, indigenisation and human-more-than-human relations, Aikio invites audiences to consider what becomes visible when time is understood not primarily as a linear progression or scarce resource, but as relational, layered and grounded in responsibilities that extend across generations and beyond the human.

Áile Aikio is a Sámi scholar and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lapland. She is affiliated with the MultiBEING Centre of Excellence and the SÁMIPOLITY project, and her work explores Sámi cultural heritage, museums, art, decolonisation and Sámi understandings of relationships between humans and other beings.

The conference will be livestreamed, allowing participants to follow the keynote and other sessions online. Further information, including streaming details and the conference programme, is available on the conference website.

Conference website: https://site.nord.no/samisk-konferansen/

Speaker profile: https://site.nord.no/samisk-konferansen/aile-aikio/

Programme: https://site.nord.no/samisk-konferansen/programme26/

Photo: Ville Rinne