Pratt, Kenneth L., and Scott S. Heyes, eds. Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North. Athabasca, Alberta: Athabasca University Press, 2022.
In Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North, editors Kenneth L. Pratt and Scott A. Heyes bring together a diverse collection of stories and research connecting memory with site-specific language and land. Featuring Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors from Arctic, subarctic, and temperate regions of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberia, the book highlights multimodal approaches to active, living landscapes. Throughout the narratives, research, and relationships presented, memory plays a key role in human adaptation and survival. Land-based interactions shape memory and identity; however, these interactions can shift following significant changes caused by dispossession, the layered effects of colonization, and an increasingly unstable climate. With an emphasis on place-based memory and naming, this volume brings forward deeply rooted and complex human relationships with language and the Northern landscape.
Indigenous ways of knowing are central to this collection. In their introduction, the editors state, “elevating Indigenous voices and recognizing Indigenous people as experts in their own history are crucial steps toward a better understanding of how Northern settings are known and conceptualized.”[1] As research associates at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center, Pratt and Heyes highlight Indigenous survival and relationships with homelands, particularly through the significance of place names. They begin with a thorough and active explanation of the orthography and terminology used throughout the book. Paying careful attention to how language informs identity and culture, Pratt and Hayes also acknowledge the importance of correct spelling and the complications with transcription. A sense of inclusion and critical analysis of the intersections of colonial and decolonial pathways emerge, recognizing Indigenous knowledge and place names as evidence alongside quantitative Western methodologies. Placing Indigenous knowledge at the forefront interrogates Western research methods by what information is gathered, conceptualized, and presented.
Each of the book’s three thematic sections begins with a contemporary Indigenous perspective and corresponding imagery from the contributors. This visual storytelling amplifies each topic and allows for expansive worldbuilding and generative placemaking. In the first section, “Indigenous History and Identity,” readers are guided across place and time, beginning with site-specific examinations of localized oral narratives from Yakutat to Nunivak Island in Alaska, to the Canadian Arctic. Stories of migration and the significance of picking berries articulate how “memories cannot be separated from the places in which they are formed, that memories transmit knowledge to younger generations, and are fundamental to the preservation of identity.”[2] The next section, “Forces of Change,” opens with a first-person account from a Yup’ik artist and mother who counters stereotypes with traditional ways of being.[3] Stories of adaptation and resilience are paired with erasure and dispossession, with examples of “cartographic colonization” and exploratory mapmaking as tools to alter landscapes, transfer energy, and claim authority over “who controls the narrative about land.”[4] Newly marked names on maps and physical land features transform local knowledge and the identities of peoples and their homelands, though there are multiple ways of being and staying connected to a place. The third section covers varying methods of understanding place names, emphasizing the importance of language in locating oneself within the land spatially, spiritually, and systematically. Aptly titled “Knowing the Land,” this part of the book focuses on evolution and adaptation, arguing that linguistics, archaeology, and theoretical perspectives also adapt to changes over time.
Throughout this volume are narratives often overlooked and undervalued. For example, Pratt and Heyes draw attention to the importance of “human-plant relationships” and being on the land for Inuit women.[5] Opening each chapter with personal narratives and imagery grounds the volume in the present and reminds readers that ways of knowing are actively unfolding as historical layers meet contemporary Indigenous perspectives. The breadth of topics covered reflects the editors’ dedication to sharing Indigenous-centered viewpoints and framing Indigenous and Northern studies in new and engaging ways. The multidimensionality of place-based language presented creates space to consider the entangled layers of language, knowledge sharing, and intimacies within any given place, and encourages readers to listen for different stories.
The book would have benefited from the inclusion of more geographical locations across the Circumpolar North. Advertised as an interdisciplinary exploration of the Arctic, I was surprised to see the opening chapter center Yakutat in Southeast Alaska — the region I call home, and a place geographically distant from both the subarctic and Arctic. A few lines in the introduction could have offered a clearer intention towards what Northern regions are presented and how the editors define “North” and “Arctic” within this volume. This could help readers with questions such as why so little is included from Russia, or why Sápmi (Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula) is left out entirely. Additionally, while some chapters are written by Indigenous authors, I wonder if the editors sought an Indigenous scholar to co-edit the book with. These questions may have been answered by an explanation of how contributors were chosen, though details of the selection process are absent from the volume.
This collection falls short on current Indigenous-led efforts to adapt to changes across the North. For instance, there is little mention of village relocation, language revitalization, or advocacy for transitioning away from extractive development. A solutions-oriented chapter or conclusion would have allowed space for a desire-centered approach to ongoing and contemporary adaptation to cultural and environmental changes. Instead, the editors close the book with an appendix of illustrated northern animals. I appreciate the effort to bring more visual art into the book, though as an artist, the illustrations seem like an afterthought. Integrating these illustrations throughout the book would have provided more depth to the chapters.
Regardless of the shortcomings, this volume exemplifies what is possible when diverse ways of knowing and understanding converge. This book’s interdisciplinary dialogue is an essential asset to lecturers, students, researchers, and anyone interested in how humans have adapted to change over time, as well as how language preservation is vital to understanding the past, and, perhaps more importantly, the future. If “politically, economically, and in a cultural sense, a new global Arctic is said to be emerging,” then this book should be on required reading lists for educators seeking culturally responsive pedagogy. Students looking for Indigenous perspectives on language and land-based methodologies in subarctic and Arctic regions will find this volume invaluable, though with the caveat that additional sources are needed to gain a wider view on the continued effects of colonialism, Western expansion, forced assimilation, and loss of language felt across the Circumpolar North.[6]
[1] Pratt and Heyes, Memory and Landscape, 5.
[2] Martha Dowsley et al., “Berry Harvesting in the Eastern Arctic: An Enduring Expression of Inuit Women’s Identity,” in Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North, ed. Kenneth L. Pratt and Scott A. Heyes (Athabasca University Press, 2022), 120.
[3] Apay’u Moore, “But Who Am I?” in Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North, ed. Kenneth L. Pratt and Scott A. Heyes (Athabasca University Press, 2022), 151-155.
[4] William E. Simeone, “Inventing the Copper River: Maps and Colonization of Ahtna Lands,” in Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North, ed. Kenneth L. Pratt and Scott A. Heyes (Athabasca University Press, 2022), 217, 239.
[5] Pratt and Heyes, Memory and Landscape, 9.
[6] Mark Nutall, “Places of Memory, Anticipation, and Agitation in Northwest Greenland,” in Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North, ed. Kenneth L. Pratt and Scott A. Heyes (Athabasca University Press, 2022), 158.
*Cover Image: Cover of Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North, edited by Kenneth L. Pratt and Scott A. Heyes. Design by Marvin Harder, image by Felix St-Aubin.
[Cover Image Description: Book cover of Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North featuring a rocky land- and waterscape juxtaposed with subtle hints of green vegetation. Five canvas tents are scattered in the foreground. Several people are near the tents and by the shoreline.]
Edited by Nina Foster; reviewed by Deniz Karakas