Greenlandic student advocates for Decolonial practices and Diversity in Academia

Thanks to the support from NAPA’s Cultural Funding Programme, Aviaaja Lennert Olsen was able to attend the 75th Jubilee of the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at Aarhus University and hold a speech to promote diversity and further cooperation.  

In her speech at the jubilee, she talked about how over 300 years of colonization have impacted Greenlandic tangible and intangible heritage. As a result of colonization and the continuance of colonial influenced practices, she felt that her cultural heritage was hardly her own: 

“My people, the communities that have formed me, have throughout that time experienced, amongst other things, systematic oppression, forceful assimilation and genocides, which any academic person, who do not only rely on white washed sources and history, would agree that to be true.” 

Aviaaja learned during her studies that there is place for collaboration between Denmark and Greenland as well as across those borders, but that cooperation and process of decolonization cannot be only in the hands of the colonized, she emphazises.  

Feeling heard 

As Aviaaja was the only Indigenous person speaking in the jubilee about decolonization and colonization, it was a great moment for her. Especially when she could see the reality and the message she was trying to pass sink in in many of the listeners. She felt it was an important step to create an equal understanding of both parts of the colonial history, the need of action and collaboration. 

Many of the spectators came to her to thank her after the speech, some of them in Greenlandic. 

“As I was to end with the sentence ‘As the responsibility cannot only be IN THE HANDS OF THE COLONIZED’, I raised my hand to mark my presence as a Greenlandic Indigenous student of a Nordic/Danish institution, a proof of a succeeding collaboration even as ‘just another masters student’. 

Even after returing home she got lot of positive feedback through her social media platforms where she shared her experience.  

“The importance of representing Greenland, my community and Greenlandic students, which I hold highly, I feel deemable as successful”, Aviaaja celebrates. 

She says that she also felt the closesness and presence of her heritage:  

“As Indigenous it was important to mark my presence as me not being on my own, I carry my heritage in my names, in my native language and that I represent the community that have formed me.” 

Support from Cultural Funding Program 

The project was granted fund NAPA’s Cultural Funding Programme which supports individuals, organisations and actors of art and culture with a Greenlandic relevance in the whole Nordic region. The grant was used for covering Aviaaja’s travelling costs back and forth between Greenland and Denmark. 

“I am extremely grateful that NAPA had chosen me to receive funds to help me to mark the Greenlandic students’ right of presence and right to speak in Danish institutions. I wish for this opportunity for me to have spoken at the Aarhus University’s 75th Jubilee of the Department of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage to be taken as a token of a succeed collaboration for the ongoing decolonization of both parts of history.” 

Read more about the Cultural Funding Programme from here.