54 different words for snow

By Claudia Meijer on 27 June 2011

“So you are researching what* exactly?”
That is the question most asked me about my research subject for my final thesis. “I research active participation of communities to be formed around a digital cultural heritage platform,” I usually answer. This is then met by a level stare and a non-comprehending nod.

To explain what I am doing, I have to start at Greenland, where the native people’s culture is being threatened by the beatings they have taken from the modern world. The same people who only a few decades back still lived in tipis (not igloos!) and hunted polar bear for prestige are now often the inhabitants of actual houses and work in cities. However, their rich oral tradition and art are still very much alive today. In collaboration with the Dutch Museon and the Museum of Anthropoly, two Greenlandic museums now strive to support that cultural heritage by creating Roots2Share.org. This is a website devoted to sharing knowledge and insights into this culture mostly associated with aforementioned tipis and kayaks.

In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s of the previous century, Gerti Nooter did field work in Greenland. he was an anthropologist and a conservator and lived with the inuit for years, all the while capturing their way of life on camera. The 4000 pictures that resulted from this are the base of Roots2Share. The series will be made available through the website in a setting that reminds us of Facebook, including the option to ‘tag’ information to these pictures. People can ask questions and share stories and interact with history in a whole new way.
But then. The idea is there, the platform is built and debate can begin. Or can it? Because how do people who barely have access to the internet make use of this new medium to share their stories?
After all, “Just imagine snow, hunting seal and transportation by dog sled and that’s more or less how the people in those pictures live.” I explained to my friend. But it can be done. We make the platform come to them.

By speaking to the younger generation, we get them actively involved in their own history. Thirty interviewing kits have found their way to Greenland. In it a school assignment, a voice recorder and a booklet with a small selection of photos also found on the website. Those photos will be the theme around which the interview will be conducted. It has been done before, the results are even on tape, but that was before there was a website to post the stories to.
By letting these kids do the work for their elderly community members, we cross the bridge between the old and the new world.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it, when explained like that? Usually at this point my friends nod in agreement. It is’t simple, however. My research goes deeper then just this one test. But it’s a start. I can’t wait until the results are in.

My friend and I order a fresh beer and I see a question brewing in her mind.
“Yes?”
“Well.. Is it true they have 54 words for snow?”
“No. Only about 30. Cheers.”

tagged with: roots2share, greenland, cultureal heritage

Comments