Quliaq tohongniaq tuunga (making histories): towards a critical inuvialuit archaeology in the Canadian western arctic
Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The Inuvialuit of the Western Canadian Arctic have been both underrepresented and misrepresented in the annals of written history. The present study has sought to redress this gap both theoretically and methodologically through the process of undertaking a community-based archaeology project with the Inuvialuit. This study was formulated within a critical perspective, with a view to developing a localized critical theory suited to Inuvialuit worldviews and social needs. Methodologically, the project aimed to enfranchise Inuvialuit into the process of (re)telling their histories through the identification and (re)interpretation of Inuvialuit material culture. Inuvialuit Elders superseded this task by situating their traditional objects in a rich tapestry of personal stories, experiences, and remembrances. They demonstrated how Inuvialuit approaches to the past are fundamentally different from western perspectives of linear history. The study explores the convergences and divergences between how the Inuvialuit past is portrayed by insiders and outsiders, and also suggests how such representations are constructed within present cu ltural and sociopolitical circumstances . Inuvialuit Elders and community leaders asserted that their identities are constituted by their knowledge of a shared history and by their relationship to the land, and that these representations of the past are critical to understanding their present and to negotiating their future. The relationship developed over the course of this project between the Inuvialuit and archaeological communities has made strides towards both a critical Inuvialuit archaeology and towards the decolonizing of archaeological theory and practice in the Canadian north.
Description
Bibliography: p. 261-310
Some pages are in colour.
Some pages are in colour.
Keywords
Citation
Lyons, N. (2007). Quliaq tohongniaq tuunga (making histories): towards a critical inuvialuit archaeology in the Canadian western arctic (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/1326