Paper short abstract:

Through focusing on the "mundane" themes of wood, trails and cabins, this paper discusses the weaving together of past, present and future. Elaborating on fifteen months of fieldwork with northern Dene in Canada, the Gwich'in Dene contest particular "development" initiatives by the Government and industries whilst incorporating others. Narrating and making, then, become expressions and understandings placed within a rich field of manifold relations or multiplicities (see Deleuze and Guattari 1987 and Ingold 2000)

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will bring together events, narratives, persons and things. Following Ingold (2000, 2007) and taking an univocal approach (Deleuze 1974, 1987), I also argue that persons and things grow alongside each other. These weavings allow a more thorough comprehension of relations in being. Building upon fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with Gwich'in, Dene of northern Canada, it has become appearant that Gwich'in continue to narrate and understand their land differently from "Southerners". Focusing on the often neglected topics of trails, wood and cabins, the unfolding of these narratives and understandings-of-being will be illustrated. Remembering and re-envisioning the past, then, becomes a continuous negotiation of awareness and apprehension of particular events which are expressed, for example, through trails, wood markings, and cabins. Gwich'in, like other indigenous peoples, carry on attempting to maintain these narratives and movements 'on-the-land' and contest certain Government and Southern initiatives, which could jeopardise their relations and being-in-the-world, whilst incorporating others.