Imagining Alaska: Local and Translocal Engagements with Place

• Published in: American Anthropologist
• Main Author: Ganapathy, Sandhya
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2013
• Subjects: Arctic; Athabascan; Gwich’in; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01538.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1548-1433.2012.01538.x; https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01538.x

ABSTRACT 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.