Bucher lesen Do Glaciers Listen?: Local Knowledge, Colonial
Encounters, and Social Imagination
By Julie Cruikshank
Do Glaciers Listen? explores the conflicting depictions of glaciers to show
how natural and cultural histories are objectively entangled in the Mount
Saint Elias ranges. This rugged area, where Alaska, British Columbia, and
the Yukon Territory now meet, underwent significant geophysical change
in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which coincided with
dramatic social upheaval resulting from European exploration and
increased travel and trade among Aboriginal peoples. European visitors
brought with them varying 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 oral
histories, conversely, described glaciers as sentient, animate, and quick to
respond to human behaviour. In each case, however, the experiences and
ideas surrounding glaciers were incorporated into interpretations of social
relations. Focusing on these contrasting views during the late
