Identité, langues et savoirs dans Riwan ou le chemin de sable de Ken Bugul

This paper, which draws its analytic and hermeneutic postulate from epistemocriticism, studies the mechanism of renegotiation of identity in Ken Bugul’s Riwan ou le chemin de sable (Riwan, or the Sandy Path). It demonstrates that the narrator decides to return to her native land because she is afraid of losing connection with herself. The study analyses the return to native land not as a withdrawal to one’s identity but as a kind of poetizing of one of many various ways of life found within contemporary Senegalese society. The paper explores different forms of representation in cultural Senegalese knowledge through the perspectives of savoir-être (knowledge of how to behave) and savoir-dire (knowledge of how to express) which take into account taboo and customary rituals. These articulations of traditional knowledge are the keys from which the narrator reconnects with her origins and thus manages to reconstruct her ethnic identity.

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Traditional Knowledge: Considerations for Protecting Water in Ontario

International Indigenous Policy Journal ◽

10.18584/iipj.2012.3.3.11 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 39

Author(s):

Deborah McGregor

Keyword(s):

First Nations ◽

Traditional Knowledge ◽

Indigenous Peoples ◽

Indigenous Communities ◽

Community Based ◽

Regulatory Documents ◽

Nations People ◽

Decision Making Processes ◽

First Nations People ◽

Ways Of Life

In Canada, the water crisis increasingly felt around the world is being experienced primarily in small, usually Indigenous, communities. At the heart of this issue lies an ongoing struggle to have Indigenous voices heard in the decision-making processes that affect their lives, lands, and waters. As part of ancient systems of Traditional Knowledge (TK), Indigenous people bear the knowledge and the responsibility to care for the waters upon which they depend for survival. A series of internationally developed documents has supported Indigenous peoples’ calls for increased recognition of the importance of TK in resolving environmental crises, including those involving water. Ontario provincial and Canadian federal governments have been developing legislative and regulatory documents to help fend off further water-related catastrophes within their jurisdictions. Despite such efforts, a number of barriers to the successful and appropriate involvement of TK in water management remain. Based on years of community-based and policy-related research with First Nations people involved in water-related undertakings, this article highlights progress made to date, and provides Indigenous viewpoints on what further steps need to be taken. Key among these steps are the need to restore and maintain Indigenous access to traditional territories and ways of life, and the requirement for mutually respectful collaboration between TK and Western science.

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Nostalgia for the Lost Homeland as Part of Identity in Alė Rūta’s Works

Jednak Książki Gdańskie Czasopismo Humanistyczne ◽

10.26881/jk.2018.9.09 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 97-108

Author(s):

Ingrida Eglė Žindžiuvienė

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Short Stories ◽

Ethnic Identity ◽

United States Of America ◽

The United States ◽

Native Land ◽

The Past ◽

Different Types

The article examines the representation of nostalgic memory of the lost homeland, Lithuania, in the Lithuanian diaspora writer’s, Alė Rūta’s (1915-2011), trilogy called “The Destiny of the Exiled”, which consists of the novels Pirmieji svetur (1984; Eng. - The First Abroad), Daigynas (1987; Eng. – The Seedling Plot), and Skamba tolumoj (1997; Eng. Echoes from Afar). These novels describe the multilayered problems of Lithuanian immigration into the U.S.A. and life of the immigrants there. Alė Rūta (Elena Nakaitė-Arbienė) is a well-known Lithuanian author, most of whose works (novels and collections of short stories and poems, all written in the Lithuanian language) have been published by the publishers of Lithuanian diaspora in the United States of America. The trauma of the loss of the native land results in the transmitted nostalgia in her novels. The author both mourns over the lost homeland and shares with the readers her grief over this loss and longing for seeing it again. In doing this, Alė Rūta echoes the nostalgic voices of many immigrants, who left their native country at different periods. The article also discusses the issue of preservation of ethnic identity, which is constructed on nostalgic and often melancholic memories of the past, and explores different types of nostalgia, which forms a core of Alė Rūta’s trilogy.

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