If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your

Stories?presented by

Jody Smothers MarcelloSitka, Alaska

What do these bits of the globe have in common?

What do these places have in What do these places have in common?common?

• Location: absolute, relative, cognitive?• Places: human characteristics?• Culturally: language, religion, ethnicity?• Geopolitically: homelands or colonies?• Economically: relative human development

indices?• Population: density, structure, growth?

“People speak a language that holds them within their community.”

Ted Chamberlin Sitka, Alaska July 24, 2005

If you were to preserve the culture of the If you were to preserve the culture of the place where you live, how would you do it?place where you live, how would you do it?

If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?Stories?

• Ted Chamberlin’s book (Canada 1st, now in paperback)

• Sitka Symposium• Criticism: women• Question for you• Question for your

students• 1st Chapter Excerpt

Five more voicesFive more voices

1. Barry Chevannes: What happens when we cannot visit relatives back in the homeland, as many Blacks, whose ancestors were brought to Jamaica from Africa cannot? What happens when your identity begins on a slave ship?

2. Romaine Moreton: Who gets to participate in creating the narrative? Who is acknowledged? How do we reclaim ourselves from racist language?

3. Mary Clearman Blew: What stories did we not hear in school? If all maps have frames, what has to be swept off the edges? Why are women’s stories and words not on the map or often thrown away? How do women’s diaries differ from public diaries?

4. Neil Sterritt: What is our place of origin? What are the links between us? “We call on the old stories at moments when we need them.” Whose stories are credible in court?

5. Levi Namaseb: When we classify ourselves and make boundaries, contradictions exist in the middle as does common ground.

AustraliaAustralia

• Romaine Moreton (book: Post Me to the Prime Minister)

– How does Romaine use voice and why?– What is the geography in her work?– Poem: Blak beauty

JamaicaJamaica

“Filmed in Jamaica, Roaring Lion charts the growth and development of the Rastafarian Movement and its founder, the former Garveyite Leonard Howell. With interviews from the renowned academic and Rasta scholar Professor Barry Chevannes and several of the movements leading figures, Mortimmo Plano, Fimore Alvaranga, Dago and Gertrude Campbell, the documentary charts the Movements growth from a persecuted commune in the foothills of Pinnacle, Jamaica, to an internationally recognized religio

• Barry Chevannes• What geographic

concepts are part of this video?

IdahoIdaho

• Mary Clearman Blew(latest book: Jackalope Dreams)

– Why is the women’s voice important in terms of the American West?

– How do gender roles impact culture?

British ColumbiaBritish Columbia

• Neil Sterritt– What is Neil arguing for in this 1982 speech?– What geographic concepts are central to his

argument?

View and get more information at the home page of the exhibit:

http://www.upperskeena.ca/vmc/english/index.htm

NamibiaNamibia

• Levi Namaseb– Namaseb works in both

Khoekhoe and #Khomani (as well as English, Afrikaans, Damara, Haillom, & German).

– What geographic concepts are connected to the preservation of endangered languages?

What is common about these What is common about these stories?stories?

• If this is your land, where are your stories? Or, why are stories or languages connecting people to their land important?

• What is the weight that should be given to oral histories? Or poetry?

• What are the commonalities among indigenous stories from continent to continent or globally?

• What have been the impacts on culture by the colonial or imperial paradigm? How have these places been affected by “guns, germs, and steel”?

• How do indigenous, dispossessed, and gendered voices, stories, and language survive against colonial or imperial paradigms and the forces of globalization?

• How are local, folk, and indigenous cultures different from popular culture?

Free Response ItemsFree Response Items

• Brainstorm •What are lingering effects of colonialism and imperialism on today’s cultures?1. Define colonization and

imperialism.2. Cite three examples from

three different regions of the world where local, folk or indigenous people have expressed resentment at colonial powers or imperial powers in ways that represent their cultural diversity. Use three examples of cultural diversity from among:

o Languageo Religiono Gendero Ethnicity

Jody Smothers MarcelloJody Smothers Marcellosmothers-marcelloj@mail.ssd.k12.ak.us

http://aphumangeo.wordpress.com

Sitka National Historical Park, Sitka, Alaska, 12/24/08,Photo by JSM