Taku River Tlingit Genres of Place as Performatives of Stewardship

• Published in: Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
• Main Author: Schreyer, Christine
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2016
• Subjects: tlingit
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jola.12109; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fjola.12109; https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jola.12109

This paper examines how the members of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation are using genres of place such as place names, maps, land policies, and language curricula as performatives of stewardship. Within the political context in Canada, negotiations over land, such as the land claims process, have become prioritized over negotiations over language use, resulting in an ideology where land has often become iconic of First Nation identity. For the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, Tlingit language both indexes the land as a resource of that land, but is also used in genres of place, which stand as icons of their lands and territory.