Imagining Alaska

Local and Translocal Engagements with Place

Bibliographic Data

ID2280341
AuthorsGanapathy (0000-0001-5640-6075, St. Lawrence University, corresponding author), Sandhya Ganapathy
Year2013
Volume115
Issue1
Pages96-111
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Anthropologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7294 • E-ISSN: 1548-1433
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01538.x
OpenAlexW2158778272
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited34

In this article, I examine the concepts of place and place-making across multiple scales to understand how Alaskan landscapes have been constituted and defined from afar and how these translocal spatial formations are experienced and contested locally. Alaska's inception as a spatio-legal entity was accomplished through translocal legislative acts and imaginative representations that framed it as either a place for extractive resource development or one of bountiful, pristine nature that should remain untouched. These translocal framings precipitated economic expansion and migration into the region, resulting in material and imaginative transformations of Alaskan landscapes. Alaskan landscapes are also important for Native communities, who continue to define culturally meaningful places through grounded rather than translocal engagements. I highlight the experiences of Gwich'in Athabascan communities in northeast Alaska who must contend with competing translocal framings of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in their engagements with, and efforts to sustain, aboriginal land bases

Arctic · Environmental ethics · Geography · Resource (disambiguation · Sociology · The arctic · Wildlife · Wildlife refuge · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Ecology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Indigenous Studies and Ecology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub