Jan Peter Laurens Loovers. Reading Life with Gwich'in: An Educational Approach. Routledge,
2020. 264 pp. ISBN: 9781138616691.
In Reading
Life with Gwich'in: An Educational Approach, Jan Peter Laurens Loovers
revisits two years of ethnographic fieldwork and historical research that he undertook
with Teetł'it
Gwich'in people living in Fort McPherson, in Canada's Northwest Territories. This
book makes contributions to ethnographic and historical anthropological work
with and about Gwich'in people and their lives historically and presently. The
ethnographic component of Loovers' discussion focuses, and reflects, on his own
experiences of learning from Teetł'it
Gwich'in people on and through the land. Loovers frames his discussion by introducing
two concepts he developed based on his own observations and his engagement with
relevant scholarly literature. The first he terms an "educational approach
towards life" that embodies both (Gwich'in) knowledge transmission and the
process of learning and being taught where "you have to live it" (3). The
second concept he terms "reading life," where he expands the definition of "reading"
to include reading the land and reading texts as "ways of conversing" (emphasis in original; 3). Both these concepts make an
appearance in the book's title, Reading
Life with Gwich'in: An Educational Approach.
Structurally,
this 264-page book is divided into four thematic parts titled: "Introduction to
an Educational Approach," "A Sentient History," "Losing Elders, Keeping Life
Going," and "Life on the Land." Each part is comprised of either two or three
chapters that fall within the section theme. At the end of the book there are
two appendices. Appendix A ("Dramatis
Personae") details the names and descriptions of Teetł'it Gwich'in community members and other
people mentioned in the book and is followed by Appendix B ("Note on Gwich'in Topology") which details Gwich'in
place name meanings, spellings, and translations taken from the Gwich'in Online
Atlas. The book ends with a bibliography and an index.
The
Prologue opens with a vignette of a chilly (and ultimately educational) snowmobile
trip into the "bush" that Loovers took with Neil Colin during his dissertation
research (xv). Loovers explains that this account illustrates five themes he
addresses in this book: knowing, reading, travelling, the land, and Gwich'in
teachers. Based on these themes, Loovers writes that the following pages of the book will "outline an educational
approach towards life and (indirectly) exemplify what
methodological-theoretical implications this has on writing scholarly books and
doing anthropological research" (xvii). In a footnote, Loovers briefly
discusses his "inner debate" about whether to call this approach "pedagogical" instead
of "educational," and that regardless of what terminology he uses, his
"intention is to underscore that the approach is processual and incorporates
the practices of learning, teaching and being taught, and becoming
knowledgeable", all in a culturally-grounded context (xxii).
After
reading the Prologue, I was keenly interested to know more about the specific methodological
aspects of the "methodological-theoretical implications" Loovers mentions and
how he himself is (indirectly) exemplifying them. Loovers does not include a conventional
methodology section where he explicitly outlines his research methodology and/or
his methodology for writing about his research. In the first chapter, "Ecology, Education, Collaboration," Loovers
orients his work in relevant theoretical and scholarly literature and briefly explains
several of his methodological choices, such as to do few formal interviews and
to share drafts of his written work with concerned Teetł'it
community members in order to incorporate their feedback. As such, I would have
welcomed and enjoyed a discussion of the specific "methodological-theoretical"
decisions Loovers made in structuring his text and in how he presents his
research, his arguments, and his claims.
With
the exception of the Introduction and Conclusion, each chapter in this book
either focuses on elements of Teetł'it
Gwich'in history or Loovers' own fieldwork. In the history chapters, Loovers
weaves together different historical records and shared memories to give a
history of Teetł'it
Gwich'in people and their histories with, and connections to, their land and
place. He also addresses the history of literacy and change within the
community. In the chapters where Loovers discusses his own fieldwork, he
focuses on his experience of learning with and from Teetł'it
Gwich'in people both on the land and through the close relationships he built
while an engaged participant in daily community life. Throughout the book,
Loovers includes Teetł'it
Gwich'in words, phrases, and place names in Gwich'in first and English second,
which both foregrounds Gwich'in language and knowledge systems and regularly
reminds the reader of the physical, cultural, and historical space being
discussed. With regards to language, in different chapters and footnotes,
Loovers briefly discusses the history of Gwich'in language documentation,
particularly as it pertains to the different orthographies (writing systems)
that have been used to write the language historically and presently. As such,
and as a linguistic anthropologist, I would have appreciated a section where
Loovers explains and reflects on his own orthographic decisions, particularly in
relation to why he generally chooses not to mark tone in the Gwich'in words he
includes.
Each
chapter of this book is uniquely engaging and informative, but, at times, I
found it difficult to identify the ways in which the chapters individually, and
as a whole, come together to support Loovers' central arguments for "an
educational approach towards life" and "reading life." At first, I wondered
whether there was a specific, and not immediately transparent, motivation behind
the way that Loovers chose to structure each chapter and the book as a whole. About
a third of the way through reading, I started contemplating whether this opacity
was in fact a methodological decision on Loovers' part, where he set out to use
a sort of Indigenous pedagogy that entails "teaching" the reader through
example and stories rather than through direct explanation as a way of
supporting and illustrating his central arguments. I wondered whether in the
conclusion he might explain how the teachings from each chapter work together
to indirectly exemplify and illustrate his observations and claims. This type
of explanation was not the focus of the Conclusion or Epilogue. However, in a footnote
to the Conclusion title, Loovers explains that "the conclusion has been very
much a collaborative and edited writing
with Tim Ingold as we were trying to piece together different chapters in my
postgraduate thesis" (emphasis in original; 231). It seems that the relatively
individual nature of each chapter and section of the text may not reflect a
methodological or stylistic decision on Loovers' part, but is more likely a
product of the fact that the book is comprised of sections previously published
separately and other sections adapted from Loovers' dissertation. This does not
detract from the relevance or importance of the work Loovers has done or the
claims he makes; rather, it means that, for the most part, each chapter in the
book operates well as a somewhat standalone piece which contributes in
different ways to further ethnographic and historical knowledge about Teetł'it
Gwich'in people, their lives, and their pedagogies.
Victoria
Sear, The University of British Columbia