Multidisciplinary field work method; Living in the landscape (5cr)

Evaluation scale

H-5

Execution methods

Lecture course
The spring school consists of lectures and seminars from relevant fields. The investigations of cultural landscapes are executed through multidisciplinary approaches in virtually each location ad during a fieldwork period in one of the locations relevant to the school. During the school, the students will explore different aspects of culture, landscapes and communities through active exploration, research, art and community engagement.

Content

The course is an international and interdisciplinary summer school Living in the Landscape: Environmental Humanities, Arts and Education for Sustainability in the North (LiLa). It is organized annually in collaboration with different higher education institutions around Circumpolar North.
The central themes of the summer school are cultural, ecological and social sustainability and posthuman issues related to the circumpolar North’s sociocultural environments and the various expressions of Northern culture and nature. These are approached through multidisciplinary research methods, for instance the arts, handicrafts and nature sciences through living in and exploring the culture and environment in different location participating the school. The focus of the school is in the encounters between traditions and modern times: traditional forms of culture and contemporary practices are brought to dialogue and work as materials for the school. The landscapes are explored and interpreted with culturally sensitive investigations and art-based processing. The landscapes are explored and interpreted with culturally sensitive and new materialistic investigations and art-based processing.

Teaching methods

WHAT & HOW
The sixth Living in the Landscape (LiLa) summer school is facilitated by the Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design (ASAD) Network and is part of the LiLa summer school series launched initially 2018. It offers a unique opportunity for master and doctoral students studying in the ASAD Network’s partner institutions, to join an international team of researchers, lecturers and to meet students from different disciplines to learn from each other in the study of landscape. The central themes of the summer schools are cultural, ecological, and social sustainability issues related to the circumpolar North’s sociocultural environments and the various expressions of Northern culture and nature. These are approached through multidisciplinary research methods, for instance the arts, handicrafts, and nature sciences through living in and exploring the culture and environment in different location participating the school. Also, more-than-human perspective to landscapes are examined.

The theme of the sixth LiLa Summer School is Kindred – Living in the Landscape. By the theme we are looking for our common experiences of the Arctic and Northern landscape, nature, culture, community and aspects of sustainability. Kindred can mean relational, familial, ancestral, communal and shared. It can also refer to the patterns of social relationships.

The school will take place in one online preparation seminar and in one-week onsite fieldwork in Nesna, Norway. The fieldweek consists of exhibition, seminar day, workshops and fieldtrip to location near Nesna.
The student can choose how many credits they want to complete in the course. 2 credits include active participation in seminars and field week and course assignments. 5 credits consist of participation, course assignments and a 5-page reflective essay on landscape-related themes covered in the course, including at least two reference books/articles.

WHERE & WHEN
ONLINE Seminar (lecture and small groups) 17 March 9.00 UK/ 10.00 SWE_NO/ 11.00 FIN – 12.00/13.00/14.00
ONSITE Fieldweek 20–24 May, Nesna, Helgeland, Norway.

HOW TO REGISTER
The registrations and credits are granted by the University of Lapland (UoL). Students interested to join the course are to contact their institution’s coordinator (check below) who selects students and helps with registration to UoL study systems.

LiLA Partner institutions and coordinators:
University of Lapland, Elina Härkönen elina.harkonen@ulapland.fi
Nord University of Norway, Nesna Campus, Mette.Gardvik@nord.no
Umeå University, Lotta Lundstedt, Lotta.Lundstedt@umu.se
University of the West of Scotland, Kathryn Burnett Kathryn.Burnett@uws.ac.uk
University of the Highlands and Islands, UHI Shetland, Roxane Permar, Roxane.Permar@uhi.ac.uk