Nuna

• Main Author: Pongerard, Julien
• Other Authors: Université du Québec à Montréal = University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM), Cultures, Environnements, Arctique, Représentations, Climat (CEARC), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay (ENS Paris Saclay)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: nuna; place-names; territoriality; Inuit land; imagined communities; indigenous studies; identity politics; [SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography; [SHS.ANTHRO-SE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology; [SHS.SOCIO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Sociology; Arctic; inuit; Journal of Northern Studies
• Online Access: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01958094; https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01958094/document; https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01958094/file/2017_Article_Journal-Northern-Studies.pdf

International audience The Inuit land is often known through Western phrasings such as the “Arctic” or the “Great North.” In this article, based on an extensive review of literature, I focus on the name the Inuit give to their own land, which is one of the only words common to all Inuit dialects: nuna. Studying the word’s meaning casts light on a peculiar indigenous territoriality, and on the centrality of environment in Inuit ways of life and holism thinking. The Inuit conceptualize their inhabiting of the circumpolar region in a way radically opposed to Western narratives of wilderness or wasteland.In the late twentieth century, nuna was turned into a key component of identity politics. Inuit peoples linguistically reappropriated their lands, in parallel with formal land claims and the recognition of Inuit self-governed territories. Nuna is at the core of these processes, as the concept justifies the claims for recognition of vernacular toponyms, and the vocable itself was included in the names of Inuit regions. Nuna as an indigenous political banner helps understanding the imagination of Inuit political communities, emerging from a dialectical co-construction of identities and territories mediated through the linguistics of place.