A second year humanities and social sciences student has received the inaugural Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge (ELK) Award.
Shannon Greene accepted the award from artist and scholar Dr. Pam Hall, who created the award through a gift.
Valued at $1,000, the award is given to an undergraduate student from either Bonne Bay, the Great Northern Peninsula, Change Islands or Fogo Island who submits the best short personal essay on “local knowledge and its importance in my community.”
The award recipient also receives a signed copy of Dr. Hall’s Towards an Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge, co-published by ISER Books and Breakwater Books.
“The ELK Award is an opportunity to invite youth thinkers to reflect on the importance of local- and place-based knowledge,” said Dr. Hall.
“It also honours the intellectual property of the knowledge holders who essentially co-authored the encyclopedia. The entire project is about opening up who gets to make knowledge and to show that knowledge doesn’t live just at universities like Memorial but in people in communities.”
“(Tilting) is a place I love and have a real sense of belonging to.”
Ms. Greene’s essay addressed local knowledge in the community of Tilting on Fogo Island.
“I spent all the summers of my childhood in Tilting. It’s a place I love and have a real sense of belonging to,” said Ms. Greene, who is a French major and folklore minor.
The award is administered through the Department of Geography in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
