{"product_id":"do-glaciers-listen-local-knowledge-julie-cruikshank-9780774811873","title":"Do Glaciers Listen? by Julie Cruikshank (Paperback)","description":"The glaciers creep \u003cp\u003eLike snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSlow rolling on.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e- Percy Shelley, \"Mont Blanc,\" 1816\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eGlaciers in America's far northwest figure prominently in indigenous oral traditions, early travelers' journals, and the work of geophysical scientists. By following such stories across three centuries, this book explores local knowledge, colonial encounters, and environmental change.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDo Glaciers Listen?\u003c\/i\u003eexamines conflicting depictions of glaciers to show how natural and social histories are entangled. During late stages of the Little Ice Age, significant geophysical changes coincided with dramatic social upheaval in the Saint Elias Mountains. European visitors brought conceptions of Nature as sublime, as spiritual, or as a resource for human progress. They saw glaciers as inanimate, subject to empirical investigation and measurement. Aboriginal responses were strikingly different. From their perspectives, glaciers were sentient, animate, and quick to respond to human behaviour. In each case, experiences and ideas surrounding glaciers were incorporated into interpretations of social relations.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFocusing on these contrasting views, Julie Cruikshank demonstrates how local knowledge is produced, rather than \"discovered,\" through such encounters, and how oral histories conjoin social and biophysical processes. She traces how divergent views continue to weave through contemporary debates about protected areas, parks and the new World Heritage site that encompasses the area where Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory now meet. Students and scholars of Native studies and anthropology as well as readers interested in northern studies and colonial encounters will find\u003ci\u003eDo Glaciers Listen?\u003c\/i\u003ea fascinating read and a rich addition to circumpolar literature.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJulie Cruikshank\u003c\/b\u003eis professor emerita in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of\u003ci\u003eLife Lived Like a Story\u003c\/i\u003e(winner of the 1992 MacDonald Prize);\u003ci\u003eReading Voices\u003c\/i\u003e; and\u003ci\u003eThe Social Life of Stories.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eDo Glaciers Listen?\u003c\/i\u003eis an exploration of nature and culture in encounter that builds upon Julie Cruikshank's deep and unrivalled knowledge of indigenous tradition. It focuses on an area that is, by most people's reckoning, 'off the beaten track' and probably thus, by extension, unpropitious space for such an inquiry. But this is its triumph. It brings liminal space to the very centre of several important concerns of contemporary scholarship.\" - Graeme Wynn, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWinner of the Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing, 2006\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"UBC Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55399253377367,"sku":"9780774811873","price":28.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0799\/4569\/5575\/files\/9780774811873.jpg?v=1791837867","url":"https:\/\/somiibooks.com\/products\/do-glaciers-listen-local-knowledge-julie-cruikshank-9780774811873","provider":"Somiibooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}