Nicola Renzi

"Yoik is stronger than gunpowder". Reflections on the Alta-Kautokeino Affair in memory of Mattis Hætta (1959-2022).

«The man who taught Europe to yoik, Mattis Hætta, is dead». This is the concise title which opened the first page of the Norwegian national newspaper on the morning of November 10, 2022. Sápmi mourns the passing of its superstar who, through a memorable yoik, made the dramatic events behind the so-called “Alta-Kautokeino Affair” known throughout Europe. This argument is primarily intended to be a commemorative act to the voice of Mattis Hætta – who in his small way, with a simple tune and two small words, has significantly changed this world. At the same time, using Sámiid Ædnan song and Hætta’s yoik as a narrative paradigm, the text recounts the resistance of the Sámi of Norway against the construction of a gigantic hydroelectric powerplant on the Álttáeatnu. In the late 1970s and
early 1980s, non-violent demonstrations by Sámi and small groups of environmental activists took place across Norway to denounce the violent hunger of their country towards resources and indigenous rights. But none of these actions gained as much resonance as the luohti which Mattis Hætta yoiked in the song Sámiid Ædnan, winner of the 1980 Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix. This yoik actually proved to be «stronger than gunpowder» – to quote the metaphor that made the refrain of the song famous. Getting to the ears of Europe through participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, the “Alta-Kautokeino Affair” and the claims of the Sámi gained a prominence never known before. In its own small way, the luohti yoiked by Mattis Hætta sparked an ever more considerable physical mobilization, accompanied by an unprecedented attention in international media, jointly prompting the Norwegian government to modify the powerplant plans and leading to the establishment of the first Sámi Parliament.

ITA
«L’uomo che ha insegnato all’Europa a yoikare, Mattis Hætta, ci ha lasciati». Con questa frase, la mattina del 10 novembre 2022, si apre la prima pagina del giornale nazionale norvegese NRK. Il Sápmi piange la scomparsa della sua superstar che, attraverso uno yoik memorabile, ha fatto conoscere a tutta l’Europa le drammatiche vicende del cosiddetto “Caso Alta-Kautokeino” e quel che esso ha rappresentato per le popolazioni indigene Sami dell’Artico europeo. Il presente intervento vuole essere in primo luogo un atto commemorativo alla voce di Mattis Hætta – che nel suo piccolo, con una semplice melodia e due piccole parole, ha un po’ cambiato questo mondo. Al contempo, utilizzando la canzone Sámiid Ædnan e lo yoik di Mattis Hætta come paradigma narrativo, si intende raccontare la resistenza dei Sami di Norvegia contro la costruzione di una mastodontica centrale idroelettrica sul fiume Álttáeatnu. Tra la fine degli anni Settanta e i primi anni Ottanta, proteste e manifestazioni non-violente organizzate da gruppi di Sami hanno avuto luogo in tutta la Norvegia per denunciare la prepotenza sociale e ambientale di questo provvedimento. Ma nessuna di queste azioni ottenne tanta risonanza internazionale quanto lo yoik che Mattis Hætta intonò durante il brano Sámiid Ædnan, vincitore del Festival della Canzone norvegese del 1980. Questo yoik si dimostrerà effettivamente «più forte della polvere da sparo» – per citare la significativa metafora del ritornello. Attraverso la successiva partecipazione all’Eurovision Song Contest e giungendo così alle orecchie d’Europa, il “Caso Alta-Kautokeino” e le correlate rivendicazioni dei Sami ottennero una visibilità mai conosciuta prima. Nel suo piccolo, lo yoik intonato da Mattis Hætta innescò una sempre più considerevole mobilitazione, accompagnata da un coinvolgimento mediatico internazionale senza precedenti che spinsero il governo norvegese a modificare i progetti della centrale idroelettrica e a garantire l’istituzione del primo Parlamento Sami richiesto dalle organizzazioni indigene locali.

The article discusses the processes of global participation and political listening towards the indigenous claims on land rights activated by the #NoDAPL movement against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The focus is stressed on hashtag activism, which had a crucial role in the mediatization of the struggles. Using the #NoDAPL hashtag as a specific case of study, I aim to examine how Standing Rock activists reframed the debate around settler policies to adjust and broaden public perceptions of indigenous rights and environmental issues to the global present. Hashtags such as #NoDAPL and #WaterIsLife captured the international attention of media, politicians, and the public, thus providing a transmedia commentary of the ongoing demonstrations at Standing Rock, as well as inviting individuals and groups around the world to flash mobs, marches, informative seminars, and any sort of gathering in support of the indigenous struggles. On-site and online activism provide rich phenomena for exploring the relationships between marginalization, participation, and political listening. Through mediatization and virtualization theory applied to digital ethnography, the aim is to analyse the aforementioned context and recompile a brief summary of the impacts that the #NoDAPL movement has had within the contemporary processes of indigenous voicing and policymaking in the US and across the globe.

The Sami are the only indigenous people formally recognized in EU, nevertheless, this significant acknowledgment came only in relatively recent times, after centuries of forced assimilation policies and thanks to crucial fights for self-determination and identity recognition. Oral musical traditions played a primary role in the Sami self-determination processes. The musical repertoire of the Sami is built on the joik chants, traditionally sung a cappella by a single individual. During the 1970s, the joik rose from the silence imposed by colonial domination. This happened through the alteration of some traditional musical parameters and the resistance of others. Among these changes, the introduction of the Sami drum in the instrumental sections of the modern joiks is particularly meaningful. This article intends to offer a contribution to the historical and cultural analysis of the refunctionalization of the usage of the drum in Sami society. Starting from an overview of the traditional uses and values of this percussion within the noaidi shamanic rituality, mostly based on existing ethnographic and archaeological results achieved by various international scholars to date, the study of some significant musical examples will follow to better understand the most recent introduction of the Sami drum in the musical culture of modern joik. Primary sources collected in Sápmi in the summer of 2019 will be integrated to the current state of the art in order to analyze the major transformations and the refunctionalization which allowed the Sami drum to break free from the condition of marginality imposed by the dominant Fennoscandian culture, thus becoming a propeller engine for the most contemporary form of indigenous identity expression: modern joik.

The Sami are the only indigenous population formally recognized in Europe, nevertheless, this significant acknowledgment cameonly in relatively recent times, after centuries of forced assimilation policies and thanks to crucial fights for self-determination and identity recognition. This article intends to offer an analysis of two cases of Sami life narratives orally transmitted as joiks, musical expressions traditionally sung a cappella and characterized by a highly descriptive value. The focus is to present, through a set of transdisciplinary approaches, intimate and social perceptions of indigeneity and the related narrative outcomes which may take place in the peculiar empathic relationship established between the narrator-performer and the audience.

Il rito, come il mito, si rispecchia nella storia e si plasma su di essa al fine di renderla intellegibile attraverso formule, significati e orizzonti di senso condivisi e trasmessi nel tempo. Se nel tempo questi significati si tramandano, nel tempo essi vengono rivisitati e ricostruiti, pur all'interno di una serie di codici condivisi in una specifica comunità. Per esemplificare questi processi di trasformazione culturale, di seguito è riportata l'esperienza della festa di San Salvatore a Uras, in provincia di Oristano, presso cui ho svolto una breve indagine sulle principali trasformazioni degli aspetti sonori caratteristici di tale ricorrenza. Attraverso immagini d'archivio, foto e filmati "di famiglia", registrazioni e analisi musicali, vengono descritti i cambiamenti più significativi cui la cerimonia è andata incontro negli ultimi quarant'anni.

Abstrákta (English below):
Seamma láhkai earáge árktalaš álbmogat, sámit eai leat ovdánahttán erenoamáš beroštumi ovddidit ollu máŋggalágan musihkkačuojanasaid. Etnográfalaš girjjálašvuođas jáhkkit, ahte dat lea gitta Sámi árra semi-nomádalaš historjjás ja Árktisa garra dilis. Dát dilálašvuođat gáržžidedje lossa biergasiid fievrrideami go čuvvo boazoealu. Dát mielddisbuvttii ahte šattai máŋggadáfogat jietnaárbevierru: juoiggus. Juoiggus lea dábálaččat čilgejuvvon vokálamusihkkan maid olbmot árbevirolaččat leat juoigan almmá čuojanasaid haga. Lea jáhkehahtti ahte luohti vuolgá luonddus ja "eallá" rabas birrasis. Jearahallamiid ja girjjálašvuođa bokte, gieđahallá artihkal “čuojanasat” rájáid árbevirolaš luođis ja ođđa luođis. Sin árbedieđus ja akustemologiijas, Sámit guldalit biekka, jogaid, geđggiid ja buot Sámi birrasa vejolaš musihkkagáldun mat sáhttet oassálastit juoigamii. Dasa lassin odne geavahit sámi artisttat luonddubáddemiid čuojanassan. Jietna- ja musihkkaovdamearkkaid vuođul artihkal jearrá: lea go čuojanasaid oarjemeroštallan dohkálaš? Mo oassálastá “more-than-humans” Sámi luohtái ja musihkkii?

Abstrakt
Similarly to other circumpolar cultures, Sámi indigenous peoples from Arctic Europe have not developed specific interests in fostering a significant variety of musical instruments. Within ethnographic literature, this circumstance is read as a symptom of Sámi early semi-nomadic history and Arctic harsh conditions, which discouraged the carriage of burdensome instruments along reindeer trails, and rather catalyzed the development of a highly sophisticated vocal tradition. Joik is commonly defined as vocal music traditionally performed by individuals without any accompaniment and believed to originate from nature and “live” in open environments. Based on fieldwork and literature review, the paper discusses the nuanced boundaries around the idea of “accompaniment” within traditional and modern joik. From emic ontological and acoustemological perspectives, the Sámi interpret wind, rivers, boulders, and every feature of Sápmi environment as potential music actants capable of intervening polyphonically and polyorganically to the performance of joik. Additionally, contemporary Sámi musicians are increasingly introducing virtual reconstructions of Sápmi sonosphere to their productions by manipulating field-recordings as instrumental sounds. By presenting heterogeneous samples of Sámi land-based sound sources, practices and aesthetics, the notion of musical instrument is called into question, urging it past what is humanly manageable and opening it up to more-than-human ontologies.

The 'spirit' in the stone. Hierophonic traces from the Indigenous' European tundra //

Nel sistema di credenze tradizionali dei Sámi, sono entità ctonie quali ulddat e gufihttarat ad aver donato lo joik agli esseri umani. Attraverso questa pratica vocale, i Sámi continuano ancora oggi a relazionarsi con l’ambiente circostante codificando e trasmettendo un complesso organo di saperi ecologici, credenze ancestrali e attività rituali che contribuiscono a tracciare un’immanente presenza del sacro nel paesaggio. Ogni angolo della tundra artica è abitato e attraversato da un cospicuo novero di spiriti reciprocamente associati alle componenti naturali di questa landa sconfinata. Maestose alture (bassevárit) e insolite formazioni rocciose (sieiddit) rappresentano da tempo immemore dimore privilegiate degli spiriti – e per questo luoghi propizi per l’incontro tra i Sámi e tali entità. Si tratta di siti spesso individuati in funzione di straordinarie proprietà acustiche capaci di fornire qualità ultraterrene agli eventi sonori che in essi hanno vita. A partire da una prospettiva archeoacustica sviluppata nell’ambito della fenomenologia indigena, questo saggio analizza le qualità risonanti della roccia come prerogativa imprescindibile per la manifestazione e l’interazione con gli spiriti, nonché per l’individuazione ierofonica di “teatri” rituali nel paesaggio naturale. Rilievi ecoacustici e testimonianze orali documentate sul campo orientano la narrazione attraverso casi passati e presenti di interazione musicale tra Sámi e spiriti ctoni del Sápmi. Il contributo intende fare particolare luce sulle strategie di re-interpretazione simbolica sollecitate, nell’ambito della relazione con gli spiriti, da fattori esterni alla tradizione quali i conflitti connessi allo smantellamento coloniale di siti sacri e alla più ampia crisi ambientale globale.

Collections and archives of environmental sound recordings are undergoing rapid transformations, diversifying their intents from educational purposes and biodiversity conservation to artistic endeavors and broader entertainment projects. The recorded materials, often presented as pristine soundscapes seemingly untouched by any cultural agency, mirror nature-culture dichotomies and tendencies for sonic “salvation” which shaped the collecting attitude of sound-related disciplines both in Natural Sciences and Humanities. In recent decades, communities urging for the return of sonic heritage have signaled a growing awareness towards the severe material and immaterial consequences of such approaches to soundscape conservation, driven by colonial logics of extraction, appropriation, objectification, and displacement. The current gap in established and sustainable guidelines for co-designed and participatory archival practices – capable of granting intellectual sovereignty to communities over their own sonic heritage – is addressed on transdisciplinary grounds through a multitude of creative approaches frequently inspired by local knowledge.
Muitalusat guldaleami birra is an artistic research project that weaves together a plurality of listening experiences from Sápmi. It consists in an audio-anthology narrated through diverse voices of Sámi artists and researchers, along with other-than-human beings co-existing in the northernmost fringes of Europe. Product of a broader study aimed at exploring Sámi acoustemologies, its contents and structure have been co-designed with local communities for the return of soundscapes and related narratives to the land they ancestrally belong to. Adopting Indigenous storytelling, joik performances and soundscape composition as preferred media, the audio-anthology explores sonic connections with the land, as well as addresses the profound consequences of colonial extractivism and climate change on the delicate biocultural soundscapes of the Arctic.
In presenting the methodologies collaboratively adopted from the co-designing to the dialogic recording, cataloguing, and dissemination of materials, this paper seeks to address key research questions: who holds the right to collect and archive soundscapes? For whom is the recorded soundscape collected? To whom is it relevant as collectible and archivable subject? Additionally, the paper examines how lands and local communities are represented through the archive and explores the leading role of local knowledge in the development of sustainable approaches to the collection and archival of soundscapes.

Paper presented on May 21, 2024, within the conference "Materiality at the Intersection of Ecology and Religious Studies" (Fondazione Cini, Venezia). Abstract: According to the traditional belief system of the Sámi people, every corner of their Indigenous territory in the European Arctic is inhabited and traversed by a diverse multitude of more-than-human spirits which, since time immemorial, actively tend to this ancestral land, meticulously regulating the fragile ecosystemic relations among all its inhabitants. Beside the customary practice of material offerings, the Sámi mainly encounter these entities within the sonic realm, engaging with them through environmental listening, joik performances and percussive use of ceremonial drums. Based on interviews and ecoacoustic recordings carried out during ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines these hierophonies – sacred components of a soundscape – to draw attention on their ecological implications. Adopting biocultural and postcolonial approaches capable of challenging nature-culture dichotomies that hold no relevance within Sámi onto-epistemologies, the study places specific emphasis on symbolic reinterpretations of forms and values in human-spirit communication during times of environmental catastrophe. The relentless colonial extraction of natural resources and the resulting depletion of Sámi biocultural landscape emerge as novel topoi in both the material and immaterial expressions of Sámi spirituality. Two representative cases support the analysis of these transformations: (1) vocal interactions with spirits through the echoing of sacred sites where the acoustic environment has been disrupted by colonial extractivism, and (2) the iconographic translation of the ecological crisis portrayed as cognitive map on the membrane of a Sámi drum. Driven by the same oracular question – “what will the spirits tell us about the events to come?” – through which the Sámi traditionally consult their spirits, both cases converge to highlight ways in which the Sámi interpret contemporary global challenges within a local cosmological and ecological horizon, negotiating ancestral knowledge and incorporating modernity into a shared interpretative framework which ensures and entrust an effective transmission of spiritual and ecological knowledge in a challenging present.

Paper presented within the panel "Listening and giving voice to more-than-human world". Abstract: Muitalusat guldaleami birra (‘stories about listening’) is an artistic research project that weave together a plurality of listening experiences from Sápmi. It consists in an audio-anthology narrated through voices of Sámi juoigit, artists and researchers, along with other-than-human beings co-existing in the northernmost fringes of Europe. Product of a broader doctoral study aimed at exploring Indigenous acoustemologies and Sámi histories of listening, its contents and structure have been co-designed with the participants through sessions of sound-walking, deep listening, and aural reflexivity towards the Arctic landscape. Adopting Indigenous storytelling, joiking and sound art as preferred media, the audio-anthology explores sonic connections with the land and senses of place, as well as it addresses the dramatic consequences of colonial extractivism and climate change on the delicate biocultural soundscapes of the Arctic. This paper wishes to discuss the methods and methodologies adopted from the planning stages to the crafting of the audio-anthology. These approaches encompass the utilization of multi-modal field recording techniques (including binaural, ambisonics, and geo-hydrophonic recording) and dialogic editing practice which engaged with broader Indigenous communities invited to reflect upon sonic relationships with other-than-human beings in Sápmi. Addressing two specific stories selected from the anthology, the paper presents (1) the ecological role of mosquitoes in Sámi onto-epistemologies and storytelling, and (2) the transformations of Sápmi coastal soundscapes during the summer of 2023 – as a consequence of the avian flu outbreak that affected the coasts of Finnmark and its related impacts on the Mearrasámi communities.

Paper presented at the 12th Symposium of the ICTMD Study Group on Music and Minorities with a joint day with the Study Group on Indigenous Music and Dance (4-9 December 2023, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka)

25 February 2023 has been hard to the Sámi indigenous peoples of northern Fennoscandia and Russian Kola. In fact, it will be undoubtedly remembered as one of the toughest days in Sámi recent history. On one side, a group of young Sámi activists (NSR) occupied the Oil and Energy Department, in Oslo, as more than 500 days passed since the Supreme Court concluded that the colossal windfarm in Fosen (Norway) violates Sámi human rights. Despite declaring the power plant illegal, the turbines were left operative thus hindering reindeer husbandry and the related indigenous stewardship of the land. Simultaneously in Helsinki, on the other side, the Sámi Parliament Act – which after decades of struggles and governmental stall would have ensured unprecedented self-identification and self-determination rights to the Sámi within Finnish law – was once more rejected. Based on primary material collected during fieldwork or retrieved from extensive social media review, the paper recounts the sonic and musical build-up to the mentioned date in order to capture and map sentiments, values and resilient acts of refusal articulated by Sámi artists and activists around the respective struggles. Through binaural recordings of rallying cries, audiovisual cues in live concerts, individual and collective joik performances, and many other modes of sonic demonstration, a series of histories of listening will be presented to advance an analysis of the controversial and fragile political status of the Sámi, as well as to address the most recent violation of fundamental human rights of a “minority on its own land” in the colonial European North.

Already from Schafer’s work, studies in acoustic ecology focusing on the Arctic region often critique the presence of anthropogenic noise pollution by oversnow vehicles, viewing it as disruptive to the remote, almost mythical, natural purity and quietness of those places – a problem in need for acoustic regulations (Schafer 1977: 84-85). Ecoacoustic analyses typically rely solely on quantitative data, which do not capture, nor even consult, the complex variety of acoustemologies that local communities cultivate towards the soundscapes they share. While anthropogenic noise pollution is indeed a growing concern in habitat preservation and naturalistic destinations impacted by mass tourism, it is imperative to recognize the unique cultural contingencies where its measurement takes place. Established ecoacoustic indexes and models often overlook the cultural components of landscapes, and this is where a biocultural discussion led by ethnomusicologists could and should chime in. Throughout this paper, I share the preliminary results of a firsthand experiment aimed at bridging quantitative and qualitative methods in sound mapping by taking on biocultural approaches in the joint ecoacoustic and ethnographic analysis of soundscape. My curiosity revolved around whether quantitative methods could be applied to a context where the local onto-epistemological perception of anthropogenic noise differs from the dominant one, thus revealing Western-centric biases in the field of Acoustic Ecology. Through the development of an urban grid of 54 monitoring points in Guovdageaidnu (Sápmi) and through the realization of an interpolation map of SPL dispersion, the objective of this paper is to investigate onto-epistemological conflicts and reconciliations between Sámi and Western perceptions of noise produced by oversnow and all-terrain vehicles on Indigenous lands. Since ecoacoustic assessments significantly influence noise pollution regulations and, as a result, broader policies involving Indigenous and Human Rights, I argue that the acknowledgment of alternative sonic onto-epistemologies in urban and environmental planning becomes a crucial aspect in the process of transcultural reconciliation and decolonization. Within this framework, consultation and engagement of local communities and cultural diversities are essential methods for approximating a bioculturally sustainable and inclusive monitoring approach.

The paper explores the sonic relationships between gender and materiality in the Opera dei pupi, the Sicilian puppet theatre. It focuses on puppets as performative sound sources whose bodies, clothes, armor, shields and weapons exhibit specific acoustic properties which contribute to the definition of specific roles, rhythms, as well as to a more general enrichment of puppeteers ’storytelling. From chivalric narratives to hagiographies, bandits ’tales, and contemporary episodes, the craft of male and female figures has been characterised by a peculiar attention to the employed materials and adornments, which in a staged framework inherit distinctive sound identities. The concept of ‘sonic materiality ’is applied to the intersectional study of gender and class representation in the Sicilian puppetry to detect feminine and masculine attributes within the soundscape of the Palermitan Opera dei Pupi, as well as the occurrences and functions of gendered sounds in past and present narratives. Surface recordings collected during various staged performances by means of piezoelectric sensors emphasised the predominant dichotomy between “silent” damsels, shepherds and marginal characters, and the loud, impetuous masculinity of paladins and Saracens. Soft cloth and wood sounds from the former are regularly overwhelmed by metal clangs and wooden stomps by the latter, which ultimately impose and dominate over the acoustic frame of the puppet’s theatre. This generally reinforced sonic dualism is often challenged by liminal characters such as Carinda and Bradamante – among other female protagonists – that hold and exalt ‘masculine ’attributes both visually and acoustically. Through interviews with puppeteers and manufacturers, as well as dialogical acoustic analysis, the paper aims at contributing to the discussion on materiality as a crucial multi-sensorial element for the broadening of music and sound practices research. It also engages critical sound studies methods and sonotope theory in the onto-epistemological understanding of gender roles within oral and material storytelling.

Similarly to other circumpolar cultures, some Sami indigenous people from arctic Europe have not developed specific interests in fostering a significant variety of musical instruments. Within ethnographic literature, this circumstance is read as a symptom of Sami early semi-nomadic history and arctic harsh conditions, which discouraged the carriage of burdensome instruments along reindeer trails, and rather catalysed the development of a highly sophisticated vocal tradition. The yoik is commonly defined as vocal music traditionally performed by individuals without any accompaniment and believed to originate from nature and “live” in open environments. Based on fieldwork and literature review, the paper discusses the nuanced boundaries around the idea of “accompaniment” within traditional and modern yoiks. From emic ontological and acoustemological perspectives, those Sami interpret wind, rivers, boulders, and every feature of Sápmi environment as potential music actants capable of intervening polyphonically and polyorganically to the performance of yoiks. Additionally, other contemporary Sami musicians are increasingly introducing virtual reconstructions of Sápmi “sonosphere” to their productions by manipulating field-recordings as instrumental sounds. By presenting heterogeneous samples of Sami land-based sound sources, practices and aesthetics, the notion of a musical instrument is called into question, urging it past what is humanly manageable and opening it up to more-than-human ontologies.

Paper presented on February 27, 2023 for the third annual meeting of the seminar "Il silenzio delle ragazze. Gli studi di genere fra storia e antropologia". In 2023, the seminar theme was "La memoria delle donne: parentele, gruppi sociali, comunità, individui"

The goavddis is the ceremonial drum of the Sami noaiddit and encodes a cognitive map of the world translated on the membrane as a rich and complex figurative apparatus. The iconographic history of the surviving goavddis reflects the history of the transformations of Sápmi natural landscape and the related shifting sense of place, highlighting the indigenous narration of suffered colonization processes. Based on interviews and fieldwork, the paper analyses for the first time a goavddis built and decorated in the early 1980s by Sami activist and photographer Niillas Somby as a political statement made by the indigenous community throughout the Alta conflict. The socio-ecological damages resulting from land dispossession and the related construction of a Norwegian hydroelectric powerplant on the Álttáeatnu have symbolically found a figurative expression on the membrane of the drum, thus mapping the crisis of both the natural and cultural landscape, as well as narrating incessant colonial oppression. According to the oracular question “What will the spirits tell us about the events to come?”, the analysed drum represents today the oracle interrogated by the Sami to gain crucial information concerning the health and survival of the community in the face of the intertwined environmental and colonial crises. The drum gives Sami people the opportunity to interpret contemporary global challenges within a local cosmological and ecological frame of reference, confirming the idea of the drum as a cognitive map that allows the Sami to better understand the world they are part of. It also contributes to the ongoing negotiation of their indigeneity by transmitting traditional knowledge and incorporating modernity into a shared interpretative framework which ensures the transmission of the ancestors’ ecological and cosmological knowledge.

Coniugando joik del paesaggio e sinfonia a programma, due distinte tradizioni volte in maggiore o minor misura all’espressione di contenuti extra-musicali attraverso mezzi specificamente musicali, la Juoigansinfoniija di Seppo Baron Paakkunainen e Nils-Aslak Valkeapää apre inedite prospettive all’indagine estetico-filosofica sulle dinamiche che intercorrono tra uomo e natura sul piano musicale: un’indagine che forse ancor troppo debolmente volge l’orecchio agli esiti del sincretismo creativo innescato dall’incontro tra repertori indigeni di tradizione orale e musiche della tradizione scritta occidentale. Questa relazione documenta il caso della traduzione sinfonica di un canto joik tradizionale delle popolazioni indigene sami dell’Europa artica. La fruttuosa collaborazione tra un compositore finlandese e un artista sami ha portato alla genesi di una composizione musicale multilivello, la cui completa decodificazione non può prescindere dalla conoscenza di norme estetiche idiosincraticamente indigene. All’orecchio sami, il vento, effettivo oggetto dello joik orchestrato, appare immediatamente riconoscibile e decifrabile in quanto tale e non in quanto sua rappresentazione. Ciò avviene in funzione del peculiare potere evocativo degli joik, nella cui performance è codificato un ampio insieme di percezioni, saperi e valori articolato dai sami a partire dall’esperienza sensibile del mondo abitato, costruito e attraversato. L’indagine è stata condotta attraverso lo studio di fonti orali e manoscritte, nonché interviste semistrutturate e conversazioni svolte in collaborazione con diversi musicisti sami, sul campo e a distanza.

Panel convenor: Nicola Renzi (Università di Bologna, University of Helsinki)
Since the topical work of Stó:lō/Skwah scholar Dylan Robinson (2020), studies in music and sound have witnessed a notable surge of interest in methodologies aimed at decolonizing the related disciplines. At the core of these endeavors lies a critical examination of listening positionality, which plays a pivotal role in recognizing diverse ontologies and epistemologies compelling us to reconsider the very definition of the musical object, as well as the approaches historically adopted to investigate it. Music analysis is critically addressed by Indigenous scholars as an interpretative tool instructed by Western aesthetic and scientific assumptions that often hold little or no relevance to local stakeholders, while ‘starving’ for extracting, dissecting, and exhausting its objective. Furthermore, the emerging recognition of more-than-human agents in music performance and sound-art reveals ecological implications that, as of yet, lack effective and robust analytical methods to transcend a cognitive framework limited to nature-culture binomials. Indigenous onto-epistemologies offer valuable insights and contributions to this evolving discourse. The panel brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds, fostering a decolonial dialogue aimed at rethinking the role, relevance, and possibilities of music analysis through and within Indigenous knowledge. All the presenters’ contributions, each one with its specificity in terms of issues and methodological lenses, raise different analytical questions pertaining intersections between sonic practices and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). After providing an introductory overview of current analytical directions in ecomusicology and Indigenous music studies, the panel delves into four distinct case studies, centering on the analyses of multispecies vocality, emic organologies, sacred acoustics and eco-polyphonies. These investigations span diverse biocultural landscapes, from the Tyva steppe of Inner Asia (Peemot and Dizhitmaa) to the melting ice sheets of Greenland (Harrison, Moisala and Hvishu), from the Purus River basin in the Amazon (Virtanen and Apurinã) to the Arctic tundra in the northernmost Europe (Janssønn and Renzi). By bringing together such different perspectives and cases, the presenters of this panel wish to encourage a broader reflection on the ethics and scopes of co-designed analytical methods facilitating the coproduction of decolonized knowledge in music and sound research.

Nelle lingue Sámi, i verbi “raccontare” e “ricordare” hanno radice comune.  Ciò dà conto di una memoria individuale e collettiva che vive e si nutre dell’atto narrativo, tramandato oralmente dai Sámi attraverso racconti e canti.

Tra il 1880 e il 1940, sulla scia di un flusso di migrazione ben più ampio e manifesto, un numero ignoto di Sámi abbandonò la propria terra ancestrale, la regione artica europea, dirigendosi verso gli Stati Uniti e il Canada. Secondo le stime demografiche, i discendenti dei Sámi immigrati in Nord America potrebbero raggiungere i 30 000. Tuttavia, la maggior parte di essi non è consapevole delle proprie radici indigene a fronte di un lungo processo di assimilazione, nonché sintomo di un oblio identitario, talvolta volontario, atto a nascondere la propria genealogia indigena da pregiudizi etnici.

Dove la memoria è stata preservata, tuttavia, storie tramandate attraverso le generazioni continuano a collegare vividamente i Sámi in diaspora tra loro e con le proprie radici ancestrali.

Attraverso una simbolica componente auto-etnografica, Ellen Marie Jensen esplora questo territorio in We Stopped Forgetting: Stories from Sámi Americans (2012). In questo volume raccoglie la viva voce dei Sámi in diaspora, offrendo in modo inedito storie di vita e aneddoti relativi agli eventi spesso fortuiti che li hanno portati a scoprire le proprie radici e a scegliere di cessare di dimenticare le proprie origini Sámi.

Nel corso del seminario dottorale, ripercorrendo alcune delle storie di vita antologizzate nel volume, Ellen Marie Jensen presenta i metodi e i contenuti della propria ricerca. Adottando come paradigma narrativo la stessa trasmissione di memorie, saperi, credenze, oggetti e pratiche, l’autrice illustra i processi che hanno contribuito alla rinascita del patrimonio culturale in questione nel singolare contesto diasporico.

Seminario organizzato da Nicola Renzi alla presenza dell'autrice del volume, Ellen Marie Jensen. Introduce Zelda Alice Franceschi.

Seminario dottorale organizzato da Caterina F. Fidanza e Nicola Renzi nell'ambito del Corso di Dottorato in "Scienze Storiche e Archeologiche. Memoria, Civiltà e Patrimonio" (A.A. 2021/2022).

Mettendo a confronto esperienze e contesti etnografici differenti, il seminario offre un’occasione di scambio interdisciplinare sull’etica della ricerca di campo ponendo un’attenzione particolare sulle diverse modalità di rappresentazione negli ambiti dell’antropologia museale e visuale. Chi “pratica” etnografia nel senso più ampio si trova frequentemente a raccontare l’altro impiegando cose d’altri raccolte sul campo, che per chi si occupa di film o di esposizioni museali di interesse etnografico coincidono in modo peculiare con oggetti materiali e documenti audiovisuali.
L’interrogativo del «chi parla per chi» ha trovato, in generale e in diverse discipline, ampi spazi di discussione entro l’ampio panorama globale delle scienze umane. L’Italia si è inserita relativamente di recente in questo vivace dibattito, seppur timidamente, in risposta alle crescenti esigenze postcoloniali che le diverse situazioni etnografiche sempre più complesse, fragili e delicate mettono in gioco. Nel corso del seminario, la riflessione verterà sull’analisi critica delle diverse correnti di pensiero che guidano l’indagine etnografica e, in particolare, sul dialogo tra antropologia visuale e museale in riferimento al tema dell’etica della rappresentazione in contesti indigeni e non solo. Verranno trattati in modo congiunto i nodi problematici di entrambe le discipline: autorialità e dialogicità, costruzione dell’immaginario, eso- e auto-narrazione, collezione e archivio, restituzione e repatriation, codice etico e responsabilità scientifica, ontologie di produzione e ricezione di film ed esposizioni museali.

SEMINARIO NEL CICLO DI INCONTRI "COSMOENCONTRO. Cosmopolíticas – Núcleo de Antropologia" (with Prof. Oiara Bonilla)

In questo seminario ascolteremo suoni e voci non-umane. Parleremo di ascolto politico e di rivendicazioni indigene, discutendo i conflitti che emergono dalla complessa intersezione tra sostenibilità ambientale e transizione ecologica – nella criticità di entrambe queste istanze. Esploreremo questi temi attraverso l'analisi di due casi di "colonialismo verde" che si sono verificati in Sápmi e che ancora oggi rappresentano una minaccia per le terre ancestrali delle popolazioni indigene Sámi, nell'Artico Europeo.

Neste seminário, ouviremos sons e vozes não-humanas. Abordaremos questões de escuta política e reivindicações indígenas, discutindo os conflitos que surgem da complexa interseção entre sustentabilidade ambiental e transição ecológica - em ambas as instâncias críticas. Vamos explorar esses temas por meio da análise de dois casos de "colonialismo verde" que ocorreram em Sápmi e que ainda representam uma ameaça às terras ancestrais das populações indígenas Sámi no Ártico Europeu.

The RE-SOUND – Interdisciplinary Research on Soundscapes and Acoustic Ecology (University of Bologna) organises an intensive workshop on field recording techniques and ecoacoustic analysis of urban soundscapes. This year’s workshop will cover sonic and musical interactions between Bologna and its inhabitants, particularly addressing the impacts of anthropogenic noise pollution on auditory cultures and biocultural ecosystems.
Participants will engage in hands-on activities, both in the field and through digital tools. They are expected to bring their own laptops and earphones, and prior installation of open-source software such as Sonic Visualiser for spectral analysis and Raven Lite for ecoacoustic monitoring is essential. While due to time constraints participants will receive a set of recordings which were pre-collected at precise coordinates through a standardized recording system, they are also encouraged to bring their portable recording equipment.
Each participant will analyze the shared set of recordings, identifying and tracking a specific sound source through the spectrogram. The exercise will consist in evaluating the average SPL of the selected sound source at different points in space and time, while also assessing the degree of its sonic masking induced by noise pollution or other dominant sources.
The three-hour workshop will be structured into three distinct stages, each guided by field specialists. The initial stage (30 minutes) will focus on familiarizing participants with essential tools and methodologies for Acoustic Ecology research. The second stage (1 hour) will involve a brief soundwalk across the historic centre of Bologna, providing participants with the opportunity to conduct recordings and listen-to/with the histories of places and their ongoing transformations. The first half of the final stage (30 minutes) will be dedicated to discussing the recordings collected during the soundwalk and comparing them with the pre-collected recordings obtained with the standardized recording system. In the second half of the final stage (1 hour), participants will use Sonic Visualiser and Raven Lite to conduct spectrogram analyses on the pre-collected recordings. At the conclusion
of the workshop, participants will be introduced to methods of sound mapping through QGIS, which enable visual representations of the results of the spectrogram analysis.

L’obiettivo della presente ricerca è quello di fornire un’analisi storica e culturale del significato che la performance musicale dello joik e del tamburo hanno nei processi di resilienza culturale che i Sami hanno intrapreso nei confronti della subita secolare assimilazione coloniale. Attraverso numerosi esempi musicali, trascritti nel testo o riportati in formato digitale in appendice, si è cercato di ricostruire le principali trasformazioni e rifunzionalizzazioni che hanno consentito allo joik e al tamburo Sami di liberarsi dalla condizione di marginalità imposta dalla dominante cultura fennoscandinava, diventando motori propulsori della più contemporanea forma di espressione identitaria indigena. Assumendo una prospettiva olistica e partendo da un’analisi storica delle pratiche tradizionali, quest’ultima sostenuta da una consistente letteratura etnografica, il presente studio si propone di mettere a fuoco gli inediti risultati artistici raggiunti dai Sami nel nuovo millennio. Per questo motivo, interviste, conversazioni e, più in generale, qualsiasi esito della ricerca condotta nel Sápmi finlandese e norvegese nell’estate 2019, hanno fornito decisive chiavi d’analisi per i fenomeni artistico-musicali Sami più contemporanei.

MA thesis in Ethnomusicology (Music and Theatre Studies, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, July 2021)

"Sounds like Sápmi. Ecological perspectives in the musical narration of the landscape"

The MA thesis aims at the understanding of the storytelling dynamics between Sami music and Sápmi landscape. Since time immemorial, this region has been subjected to symbolic interpretations that were orally transmitted by the indigenous peoples inhabiting it. The focus is on how contemporary joik recordings have benefited the transmission of sense of places and consolidated not only individual experiences and shared feelings of belonging, but also ecologically active relations with the surrounding environment. Drawing from face-to-face and online interviews, as well as from the extensive analysis of indigenous literature and multimedia sources, the focus is on the musical narration and virtualization of the landscape. In the echo of international indigenism, the joik has undergone creative processes of resistance and politicization, which determined a vibrant continuity on local and unprecedented global arenas. In the vast panorama of modern joik, many Sami artists have introduced Sápmi soundscapes into their recordings. Sampling environmental sounds, sided by the former evocativeness of luođit and techniques of sonic spatialization became crucial tools for the transmission of indigeneity in relation to the perception of the sense of places. Creative ways of reformulating traditional acoustemologies are investigated alongside the musical recontextualization of technophonies, which presents Sámi artists as real narrators and interpreters of the ecological crisis.
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Oggetto della tesi è la comprensione delle dinamiche esistenti sul piano narrativo-musicale tra i Sami e il paesaggio del Sápmi. Quest’area dell’Europa artica è da tempo immemore oggetto di interpretazione simbolica trasmessa oralmente dalle comunità indigene che la abitano. Si indagherà come la pratica vocale dello joik abbia contribuito a tramandare percezioni indigene del senso dei luoghi, consolidando non solo esperienze individuali e condivisi sentimenti di appartenenza e abitazione, ma anche legami ecologicamente attivi nei confronti dell’ambiente circostante, animato e non.
A partire da interviste e comunicazioni raccolte digitalmente e nel corso di precedenti periodi sul campo, nonché dall’estesa analisi di letteratura e fonti musicali e multimediali indigene, l’attenzione è rivolta verso lo studio delle acustemologie Sami, il loro sviluppo e la loro trasmissione.
Nell’eco dell’indigenismo internazionale, lo joik è andato incontro a creativi processi di resistenza e politicizzazione, che ne hanno determinato una vitale continuità locale parallelamente a una prima diffusione globale. Nel vasto panorama del modern joik, molti artisti Sami hanno introdotto soundscapes del Sápmi nelle proprie incisioni. I samples del mondo naturale, l’evocatività dello joik e le tecniche di spazializzazione del suono sono diventati cruciali strumenti per la trasmissione dell’indigeneity in relazione all’intima percezione del senso dei luoghi.
In conclusione, vengono indagate le modalità di riformulazione delle acustemologie tradizionali in relazione al presente, ma anche come l’introduzione di tecnofonie, raccolte in Sápmi e ricontestualizzate musicalmente, faccia dell’artista un vero e proprio narratore e interprete della crisi ecologica in atto e delle inadeguatezze delle politiche ambientali locali e globali.

Book review for the volume "Il mondo sonoro dei Bosavi. Espressioni musicali, legami sociali e natura nella foresta pluviale della Papua Nuova Guinea" by Steven Feld (Palermo, Edizioni Museo Pasqualino, pp. 227, 2021, ISBN 978- 88-97035-87-9)

The Intercultural Institute for Comparative Music Studies, in collaboration with “The Sámi Pavilion” project at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, commissioned by Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), presents a yoik concert performed by three traditional Sámi yoikers from Norway. The event is curated by Nicola Renzi.

Among the indigenous Sámi people inhabiting the coast, the tundra and vast boreal forests of the European Arctic, the yoik is an ancestral vocal practice through which they commemorate people, evoke places, animals and other elements of the natural landscape. The yoik has various functions that are articulated on a social, cosmological and ecological level. A yoik, for instance, may be a gift made by the creator of the song to the subject it evokes, while in indigenous rituality the yoik has relevant shamanic implications related to the sound metamorphosis between human and non-human. At the same time, according to Sámi cosmology, the yoik is not a practice expressed exclusively by Man: the Sámi also hear the yoik in the voices of rivers and birds, the wind and the mountains of the Sápmi, the ancestral territory of the Sámi that stretches across the Arctic regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia (Kola Peninsula).

In 2022, the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was transformed into the “The Sámi Pavilion”, with an exhibition entirely dedicated to the indigenous art and culture of the Sámi people. To celebrate this important and unprecedented recognition, as well as the welcome that Sámi community received in Venice, the famous yoiker Ánde Somby created a luohti (the melody of the yoik) that not only symbolises the bond between the Sámi artistic community and the city of Venice, but also commemorates the uniqueness of this place and its central role in European and global interculturalism. The ‘yoik of Venice‘ will be performed at the opening of the concert through an official musical donation ceremony to the City of  Venice and will later be preserved in the IISMC archives.

The donation will be followed by a concert in which the vocal practice of the yoik will be proposed in its most traditional form. Ánde Somby will perform a yoik cycle entitled ‘The animals inside the human and the human outside the animals’. Through the performance of a specific repertoire dedicated to the evocation of the animals of the tundra, the shamanic function of the yoik will be introduced and the ecological and cosmological relations between man and animal in Sámi thought will be commented on. Ánde Somby’s performance will be followed by that of Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska, who – together with her daughter Máret Áile Gaup Beaska – will present a repertoire of luohti aimed at illustrating the yoik as the ‘art of remembering’ in relation to people, villages, and landscapes of the Sápmi.