The focus of our conference is to address gender roles through addressing some substantial areas of concern for indigenous development, and examine the extent to which men and women may have different interests and impacts, e.g. on perception and exercise of rights and the management of knowledge.

The broad headings are:

• Representations within the indigenous movement: what happens locally, what are the concerns, what are the issues raised ?
• What happens when indigenous peoples’ concern are taken through organisations to national and international arenas ? What happen to gender issues, and what are the mechanisms channelling male and female representation? In national-, regional-, UN- organisations?
• How does Indigenous Peoples demands fare in an international human rights discourse, and discourses on the rights of women?

Additionally, there will be room for other current issues under the headline “Forum update”.

This year’s conference has Kvinnforsk as a collaborating partner.

The conference languages will be Saami, Scandinavian and English.