Guest Editorial

I M Nick,Jan Tent

doi:10.1080/00277738.2017.1369740

Abstract

References Basso, Keith. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Boillat, Sébastien, Elvira Serrano, Stephan Rist, and Fikret Berkes. 2013. "The Importance of Place Names in the Search for Ecosystem-like Concepts in Indigenous Societies: An Example from the Bolivian Andes.” Environmental Management 51, no. 3: 663–678.10.1007/s00267-012-9969-4 Bölcskei, Andrea. 2014. “Traces of Ancient Celtic Religiosity in the Place Names of the British Isles.” In Husse: Proceedings of the 11th Conference of the Hungarian Society for the Study of English, edited by Veronika Ruttkay and Bálint Gárdos, 103–113. Debrecen: L’ Harmattan Publishing House. Castonguay, Rachelle. 1979. “The Relevance of Native Toponymy in Illustrating Land Occupancy in the Canadian North.” Onomastica 56: 1–2. Heikkilä, Karen and Gail Fondahl. 2010. “Indigenous Toponyms as Pedagogical Tools: Reflections from Research with Tl’azt’en Nation, British Columbia.” Fennia: International Journal of Geography 188, no. 1: 105–122. Müller-Wille, Ludger. 2000. “Nunavut - Inuit Place Names and Self-Determination. Some Reflections.” In Inuit Regain Control of Their Lands and Their Lives, edited by Jens Dahl, Jack Hicks and Peter Jull, 146–151. Copenhagen, IWGIA Document, 102. O’Connor, Loretta, and Peter Kroefges. 2008. “The Land Remembers: Landscape Terms and Place Names in Lowland Chontal of Oaxaca, Mexico.” Language Sciences 30, no. 2-3: 291–315.10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.007 Rose-Redwood, Reuben, Derek Alderman, and Maoz Azaryahu. 2009. "Geographies of Toponymic Inscription: New Directions in Critical Place-Name Studies.” Progress in Human Geography 34: 453–470. Semken, Steven. 2005. "Sense of Place and Place-Based Introductory Teaching for American Indian and Alaska Native Undergraduates.” Journal of Geoscience Education 53, no. 2: 149–157.10.5408/1089-9995-53.2.149 Si, Aung, and Samira Agnihotri. 2014. "Solega Place Names and Their Ecological Significance.” Anthropological Linguistics 56, no. 3-4: 389–414.10.1353/anl.2014.0019 Thornton, Thomas. 1997. "Anthropological Studies in Native American Place Naming.” American Indian Quarterly 21, no. 2: 209–228.10.2307/1185645 Thornton, Thomas. 2008. Being and Place among the Tlingit. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. UNESCO. 2016 November 16. “Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” Seventy-first session. A/C.3/71/L.17/Rev.1. Accessed 29 July 2017. https://undocs.org/A/C.3/71/L.17/Rev.1 UNESCO. 2017. “Open Consultations: 2019Year of Indigenous Languages.” Accessed 29 July 2017. https://en.unesco.org/events/open-consultations-2019-year-indigenous-languages

Highlights

On 21 October 2016, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution A/c.3/71/L.17 on the “Rights of Indigenous Peoples”
As global modern toponymic research has repeatedly shown, indigenous place names may be effectively understood as ethnolinguistic repositories of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) (Basso 1996; Boillat et al 2013; Bölcskei 2014; Castonguay 1979; O’Connor and Kroefges 2008; Si and Agnihotri 2014; Thornton 2008)
After reviewing the results of the pedagogical intervention, the researchers concluded that toponyms had proven to be effective tools in teaching key concepts in language, geography, history, and ecology as well as environmental awareness, use, and conservation

Summary

Introduction

On 21 October 2016, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution A/c.3/71/L.17 on the “Rights of Indigenous Peoples”. As global modern toponymic research has repeatedly shown, indigenous place names may be effectively understood as ethnolinguistic repositories of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) (Basso 1996; Boillat et al 2013; Bölcskei 2014; Castonguay 1979; O’Connor and Kroefges 2008; Si and Agnihotri 2014; Thornton 2008). As the success of this pedagogical project and many other toponymic investigations demonstrated, place names serve multiple purposes beyond the mere identification and demarcation of topographical space (Semken 2005; Thornton 1997; RoseRedwood, Alderman, and Azaryahu 2009).

Results

Conclusion