Arctic Voices revises dominant Polar history by foregrounding the stories of those who were on the receiving end of European and American imperialism. We bring together and analyse instances of Indigenous agency, self-representation, and animal presence contained in visual and textual sources from the long 19th century.
Image showing a reproduction of Sakæus’s First Communication, illustration in John Ross’s expedition narrative A Voyage of Discovery, 1819.
Indigenous agency
Objectives: examine Western representations of Arctic Indigenous individuals that emerge from meetings in the contact zone. The focus is: 1. situating primary research material in relation to dominant discourses on indigeneity in the period of production; 2. uncovering instances of transculturalism and Indigenous agency; 3. understanding the character of these instances and the role Indigenous epistemologies and ways of relating may have played in the exchange; 4. the influence Indigenous thought and perspectives may have had on Western authors and artists. Primary research material includes European and American journals, travelogues and expedition narratives from the Arctic region, images of Greenlandic, Inuit and Sámi individuals and culture.
Self representation
Objectives: examine Arctic Indigenous visual and textual productions created in a context of contact with Western society. The focus is to understand: 1. the transcultural mechanism of colonialism and the contact zone and the ways in which Arctic Indigenous artists and authors were influenced by European systems of thought and aesthetic expression; 2. how Indigenous artists and authors resisted, or complied with, colonial culture and thought, the presence and significance of Arctic Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies in Indigenous transcultural productions; 3. visual and literary strategies for cultural survival. Primary research material includes the unpublished diary of Iñupiat Ada Blackjack, works by Sámi artist Johan Turi, images by Inuit and Greenlandic draughtsmen, artists and photographers.
Animal presence
Objectives: examine Western and Indigenous productions concerned with Arctic animal representations. The focus will be on: 1. animal biography in the case of contact with and exploitation by European and American ventures; 2. defining dominant (Western) discourses on Arctic animals and nature in the long nineteenth century and how these discourses change throughout the period; 3. identifying ruptures in dominant discourses on Arctic animals and nature and investigating instances of animal agency in Western and Indigenous sources; 4. exploring the potential of Donna Haraway’s concept of becoming with in Indigenous and Western sources. Primary research material: Expedition accounts on the Arctic by select explorers and whaling captains. European and Arctic Indigenous imagery representing human-animal relationships.