BOOK REVIEW

 

 

Review of Circumpolar connections: creative Indigenous geographies of the Arctic, edited by Liisa-Rávná Finbog, Joan Naviyuk Kane & Johannes Riquet. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. 144 pp. ISBN-13978-0819501882.

As a marine geologist and palaeoceanographer, I think of scientific methods of measuring the world, and the conventional maps that result from such work, when I see the word “geography.” Circumpolar connections—a richly layered collection of drawings, photographs, essays and poems—explores another understanding of the geography of the Arctic: the Indigenous view. This view has been excluded from traditional geographical maps of the Arctic.

The book starts with a presentation of the Mediated Arctic Geographies project, along with the broader social and scientific background, in an introduction aptly titled “Compass.” Most of the rest of the volume comprises specially commissioned contributions by circumpolar artists and writers. These pieces are organized around five themes or “landmarks”: language, memory, healing, sovereignties and land-based practices. Embedded in each of these are imperialistic colonial histories as well as the connections between Indigenous people and the landscapes that set the premises for their physical, emotional and spiritual existence. A strength of the collection is its multilingualism (English translations are included).

This fine book should not be read quickly from cover to cover. Rather, the reader is advised to proceed slowly in order to relish the deeply evocative journey through Indigenous geographies that it offers. I came away from it with a changed perspective of the part of the world in which I have been working as a scientist for 25 years.