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Arcadia

Arcadia serves humanity by preserving endangered cultural heritage and ecosystems.

We protect complexity and work against the entropy of ravaged and thereby starkly simplified natural environments and globalized cultures. Innovation and change occur best in already complex systems. Once memories, knowledge, skills, variety, and intricacy disappear – once the old complexities are lost – they are hard to replicate or replace. Arcadia aims to return to people both their memories and their natural surroundings. What we want to preserve remains fragile, small and dispersed. But if we do not protect it – if it vanishes forever – then future generations will have no base from which to build a vibrant, resilient, green future.

Because knowledge should belong to all, we also promote open access, seeking to make information available without barriers of cost or distance. Charities, businesses, universities, schools, the media, politicians, and citizens all benefit when research and data are no longer locked behind paywalls or reserved for those who live near their repositories. The economy benefits too from better-informed decisions, improved schooling and knowledgeable citizens, from enhanced academic research and innovation based on shared knowledge.

We do not accept applications, but seek and support organizations run by exceptional individuals, operating in a cost-effective, scientifically sound, and ethical manner that share our vision.

Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

Funder Website

Arcadia Projects

ELDP

Documentation of Nalu, Tristao Islands, Guinea (Atlantic, Niger-Congo)

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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ELDP

Documentation of Kanamari language and culture

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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ELDP

Documentation of Baskeet song, verbal art and ceremonial language

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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ELDP

Narrative art: multimodal documentation of speech, song, sign, drawing and gesture in Arandic storytelling traditions from Central Australia

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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ELDP

Farming, food and yam: language and cultural practices among Ikaan speakers

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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ELDP

Linguistic and ethnographic documentation aimed at identifying loci of cultural and linguistic reproduction in two communities speaking endangered Bantoid languages

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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ELDP

Documenting MalakMalak, an endangered languuage of Northern Australia

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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ELDP

Documentation and lexicography of semi-nomadic and sedentary Pite Saami lifestyles

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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ELDP

Documentation of Extreme North Cameroon Sign Language and Cameroon Sign Language

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create mult…

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