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Paper short abstract

Living with Fire explores volcanic mythologies in Vanuatu. Based on linguistic and ethnographic research, it highlights how oral traditions linked to the six volcanic islands express diverse cultural relationships to volcanoes, shaping cosmology, social life and oral history.

Paper long abstract

The Vanuatu archipelago is renowned for having the world's highest linguistic density (François et al., 2015), rich traditions of oral history and mythology (Ballard, 2020; Bessis & François, 2025), and intense volcanic activity (Sherburn, 2019). Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the archipelago

is home to six active volcanoes that shape the landscape through explosive and effusive eruptions.

Volcanoes form part of everyday life in Vanuatu. They provide the black stones used for cooking; and the shape of the communal oven somehow replicate a volcano. Volcanoes also provide fertile land for horticulture – land whose ownership rights can be regulated by complex social rules.

The archipelago’s linguistic and cultural diversity is also reflected in the various ways in which local narratives represent their volcanoes. Some traditions see in volcanoes the origin of fire, the source of cooking practices and of stone ovens. Others view their volcano as an object of inter- island trade, among other goods. In central Vanuatu, a major myth tells how the eruption of the Kerua volcano gave rise to new islands and new population settlements – resulting in a new landscape, both natural and social (Bessis, 2023).

Beyond their geological nature, volcanoes also have a sacred aura. They sometimes host the Underworld, the dwelling of ancestors. They have their own guardians, whether human or mythical. Their eruptions can be triggered by sorcerers – typically as an act of revenge.

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Paper long abstract

I will be presenting my PhD dissertation on the narrative moment at which humans turn plant in contemporary coming-of-age stories.

Instead of growing up in their environment, young adults that turn plant choose to grow with their surroundings: (be)coming of plant thus presents another mode of becoming, an alternative coming of age. This inter-species transition blurs traditional boundaries separating humans from plants, which in turn allows these humans coming of age to engage in a life of entangled symbiopoiesis with their surroundings. Although their hybrid futures remain unwritten in any past, their new-found vegetality allows for multiple potential futures to be imagined simultaneously, grounding them in the present. A (be)coming of plant thus proposes a new coming of age, one that is not limited to the conventional ways, or indeed temporalities, of growing (up).

My dissertation project approaches this phenomenon of popular culture from a queer studies perspective, specifically examining the temporal change(s) that accompany such a taxonomical transition, and how this in turn affects the narratives of such examples at large. Narratives on humans turning plant thus provide insight into how the two can relate, which especially concerns our current understanding of how we may shape our entangled future(s) together.

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Paper long abstract

In 2023, a new survey of Icelandic folk beliefs and experiences of the supernatural was carried out with the help of the Icelandic Social Sciences Institute and grants from the University of Iceland Research Fund and the Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademie in Sweden. This survey builds on previous surveys from 1974 and 2006-2007, and received answers from over 2,500 people of varying ages and genders and varying backgrounds. The poster will give an introduction to the survey and its findings, which indicate not only the fact that folk beliefs (and beliefs in God) in Iceland seem to be fading but also that interesting difference exist between not only the old and young, and those living in urban and rural areas but also between genders. See https://fel.hi.is/sites/fel.hi.is/files/2024-02/Folkbelief_2023_en.pdf

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Paper long abstract

What can just and sustainable futures look like and what metaphors can help reconsider the role of natures in narratives of transformation? We would like to open up a space for mutual learning, reflection, and co-creation to explore the current and potential future uses of metaphors of nature-culture. Among the many elements that characterise narratives and discourses, we focus on metaphors since several heuristics and models highlight their role in and for deep transformations. Metaphors underpin worldviews and mental models, and are fundamental to interpreting the world, organising cognitive landscapes, and structuring societal systems. In particular basic, core, or root metaphors can influence the perception and interpretation of reality by providing basic assumptions to shape a world hypothesis or by forming a comprehensive analogy to give meaning to life. Building on previous research on metaphors of change used to explore and enact desirable futures in prefigurative efforts, our poster will offer an overview of how natures are represented and reproduced by alternative movements within the pluriverse. We would also like to invite participants to engage with our research in interactive and experiential ways, reflecting on the natures-metaphors they currently use or hear in their surroundings environments, as well as exploring new root metaphors of nature-culture and of human and more-than-human entanglements which can inspire transformative ways of thinking, acting, and narrating.

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Paper long abstract

This poster discusses ongoing research into the ways in which the rural past and present are shaped in a podcast called ‘de Nedersaksen’ (The Low Saxons). The podcast, hosted both in Dutch and the minority language of Low Saxon, has hosted over 50 Dutch cultural- and policy makers to talk about the Low Saxon region, its identity, history and language.

In recent years, the (mostly rural) Low Saxon speaking region in the Netherlands has seen increased migrations of people moving in from urban areas. Additionally, political developments regarding emissions and sustainable farming practices in the Dutch countryside led to national farmers’ protests. The rural way of living is perceived to be at stake. Many people living in the region describe a gap between the urban areas in the western Netherlands and the rural regions in the rest of the country. Conversations often steer towards a ‘Low Saxon way of looking at the world’, or a ‘Low Saxon’ nature of the people, which is often presented as distinctly different from the nature of the people in the (mostly urban) west of the country.

This poster explores the way the podcast presents a Low Saxon identity, both as what it is, but also as what it is not. By doing so, this research seeks to understand the way perceived boundaries between the ‘authentic’ rural and the ‘modern’ urban, global and local, nature and culture, center and periphery, all are employed in shaping a new identity; that of the Low Saxon.

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Paper short abstract

This poster compares the Icelandic Physiologus fragments AM 673 a I 4to and AM 673 a II 4to (c. 1190–1210) in order to examine how learned material about animals is integrated into vernacular narrative culture.

Paper long abstract

This poster compares the Icelandic Physiologus fragments AM 673 a I 4to and AM 673 a II 4to (c.

1190–1210) in order to examine how learned material about animals is integrated into vernacular

narrative culture. Transmitted from a Latin tradition but preserved in different Icelandic manuscript

contexts, the fragments offer an opportunity to observe how inherited representations of the natural

world are reshaped within local narrative forms.

A structural comparison reveals differences in how natural description, authority citation, and

allegorical interpretation are sequenced and emphasized within individual entries. AM 673 a II 4to

generally introduces animals through descriptive framing and reference to learned authority before

articulating their moral significance. AM 673 a I 4to more frequently foregrounds allegorical meaning

and presents comparatively compressed descriptive framing. These variations affect how animals and

hybrid beings are positioned within the narrative: as creatures described and interpreted, or as figures

already embedded in moral discourse.

By attending to such differences in narrative organization and emphasis, the poster approaches

vernacularization as a process of integration in which inherited material is translated and

recontextualized within Icelandic textual practice. The fragments thus illuminate how conceptions of

“nature” could be mediated, structured, and adapted within medieval narrative culture.

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Paper long abstract

Large-scale digitisation of folklore collections has created a strong but still fragmented landscape of digital infrastructures for folk-narrative research. This poster surveys the current state of these resources in Northern Europe, where extensive digital platforms now provide access to vast bodies of narrative material, though coordination across them remains limited. We show how these infrastructures support comparative, multilingual, and cross-border studies, and why closer interoperability is a pressing priority.

We highlight major digital platforms, such as samla.no (Norway), dúchas.ie (Ireland), Folke (Sweden), garamantas.lv (Latvia), hiddenheritage.ai (Scottland/Ireland), sagnagrunnur.arnastofnun.is (Iceland), Kivike (Estonia), and the Danish Folklore Nexus. Related initiatives, such as the Dutch Legend Database and wossidia.de in Germany, illustrate how digital infrastructures of folklore archives expand the range of accessible materials and enable new opportunities for comparative and computational research. Building on such infrastructures, projects like ISEBEL (multilingual legend search) and FILTER (analysis of Finnic/Estonian song variation), together with recent NLP/ASR work on Scottish/Irish Gaelic storytelling corpora, demonstrate how digital tools can extend cross-collection analysis and comparative approaches in folk-narrative studies.

The poster provides a curated set of core digital platforms and tools, a comparative overview of their content, functions, and research workflows they support, and selected examples of how they open new perspectives on research of narrative traditions, including nature-culture entwined storytelling. The poster closes by indicating pathways toward merging national initiatives into more interoperable and sustainable infrastructures for folklore research.

5 more co-authors:

Line Esborg, line.esborg@ikos.uio.no

Tiber Falzett, tiber.falzett@ucd.ie

Angun Sønnesyn Olsen, angun.olsen@uib.no

Ida Tolgensbakk, ida.tolgensbakk@norskfolkemuseum.no

Mari Väina, mari@haldjas.folklore.ee

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Paper long abstract

This paper presents a study on how digitally-mediated interactions with intangible cultural heritage may support psychological wellbeing and intergenerational connectedness. As part of the INT-ACT project, we engage three participant groups: young adults (18–30), older adults (60+), and individuals with mild cognitive impairment, in immersive interactions with the Calanais megalithic landscape on the Isle of Lewis.

Building on research into the therapeutic potential of heritage, we examine how participants engage with a bespoke XR tablet application that facilitates sensory and narrative interaction with Calanais through images, stories, sounds, and interactive components linked to the natural landscape. The tool acts as a digital mediator between personal stories, cultural narratives, and ecological presence, extending how people encounter and share heritage. Participants use the tool in intergenerational pairs and reflect on their experience through interviews and dialogue.

Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyse interviews, mood diaries, psychological questionnaires, demographic data, and physiological measures to explore how digitally facilitated access to heritage may impact connection to nature, place, memory, and others, and how this varies across age and cognitive profiles. We examine how these engagements may reshape narratives of self, belonging, and wellbeing.

The Calanais site is presented as a dynamic space where nature, culture, and technology converge. This study offers insight into how digital tools facilitate an interplay between human experience, nature and heritage, by fostering multisensory, socially engaged, and emotionally resonant forms of cultural participation.