Names, Numbers and Northern Policy

Inuit, Project Surname, and the Politics of Identity

Valerie Alia

Names are the cornerstones of cultures. They identify individuals, represent life, express and embody power. When power is unequal and people are colonized at one level or another, naming is manipulated form the outside. In the Canadian North, the most blatant example of this manipulation is the long history of interference by visitors with the ways to Inuit named themselves and their land. This book is a concise history of government-sponsored interference with Inuit identity.