What is the imagined North?

• Main Authors: Chartier, Daniel, Ásdísardóttur, Ingunni
• Other Authors: Université du Québec à Montréal = University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM), Laboratoire international de recherche sur l'imaginaire du Nord, de l'hiver et de l'Arctique, Arctic Arts Summit
• Format: Book
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: Nunavik; Images of the North; Canada; Cultural representations; Decolonial theory; Winter; Research ethics; Aboriginal; Nordicity; Inuit; Scandinavia; Discursive analysis; Russia; North; Literature; Culture; Far North; Colonialism; Arctic; Siberia; Greenland; Alaska; Québec; Iceland; [SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography; [SHS.ENVIR]Humanities and Social Sciences/Environmental studies; [SHS.SCIPO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Political science; [SHS.SOCIO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Sociology; [SHS.MUSEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Cultural heritage and museology; [SHS.HIST]Humanities and Social Sciences/History; [SHS.GENRE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Gender studies; [SHS.ANTHRO-SE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology; [SHS.HISPHILSO]Humanities and Social Sciences/History; Philosophy and Sociology of Sciences; [SHS.LITT]Humanities and Social Sciences/Literature; North Pole; Groenland; inuit; inuites; Pôle Nord; sami
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02963733; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02963733/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02963733/file/Islandais%20Complet.pdf

Edition multilingue International audience The North has been imagined and represented for centuries by artists and writers of the Western world, which has led, over time and the accumulation of successive layers of discourse, to the creation of an “imagined North” – ranging from the “North” of Scandinavia, Greenland, Russia, to the “Far North” or the poles. Westerners have reached the North Pole only a century go, which makes the “North” the product of a double perspective: an outside one – made especially of Western images – and an inside one – that of Northern cultures (Inuit, Sami, Cree, etc.). The first are often simplified and the second, ignored. If we wish to understand what the “North” is in an overall perspective, we must ask ourselves two questions: how do images define the North, and which ethical principles should govern how we consider Northern cultures in order to have a complete view (including, in particular, those that have been undervalued by the South)? In this article, I try to address these two questions, first by defining what is the imagined North and then by proposing an inclusive program to “recomplexify” the cultural Arctic. Le Nord est un espace imaginé et représenté depuis des siècles par les artistes et les écrivains du monde occidental, ce qui a mené, au fil du temps et de l'accumulation successive de couches de discours, à la création d'un " imaginaire du Nord " - que ce Nord soit celui de la Scandinavie, du Groenland, de la Russie ou du Grand Nord, ou encore des pôles. Or les Occidentaux ont atteint le Pôle Nord il n'y a qu'un siècle, ce qui fait du " Nord " le produit d'un double regard, de l'extérieur - les représentations, surtout occidentales - et de l'intérieur - les cultures nordiques (inuites, scandinaves, cries, etc.). Les premières étant souvent simplifiées et les secondes méconnues, si l'on souhaite étudier le " Nord " dans une perspective d'ensemble, nous devons donc poser deux questions : comment définir le Nord par l'imaginaire ? Selon quels principes éthiques ...