Like the Sound of a Drum: Aboriginal Cultural Politics in Denendeh and Nunavut

by Peter Kulchyski

Part ethnography, part narrative, Like the Sound of a Drum is evocative, confrontational, and poetic. For many years, Peter Kulchyski has travelled to the north, where he has sat in on community meetings, interviewed elders and Aboriginal politicians, and participated in daily life. In Like the Sound of a Drum he looks as three northern communities ― Fort Simpson and Fort Good Hope in Denendeh and Pangnirtung in Nunavut ― and their strategies for maintaining their political and cultural independence. In the face of overwhelming odds, communities such as these have shown remarkable resources for creative resistance. In the process, they are changing the concept of democracy as it is practised in Canada.

Genres: Indigenous

305 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Peter Kulchyski, although non-Indigenous, attended a government-run residential school in northern Manitoba before studying politics at the University of Winnipeg and York University. He now teaches Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. Kulchyski has written and edited many scholarly books and articles, including Like the Sound of a Drum: Aboriginal Cultural Politics in Denendeh and Nunavut.

Reviews

[Ezra]

At times, this book is incredibly poetic and describes the north, Fort Simpson, Fort Good Hope, and Pangnirtung in a beautiful way. The theory of totalization that Kulchyski draws on to help make sense of Inuit and Dene history in relation with Canada is a framework that really makes sense to me for northern history. The ethnographic descriptions of life in Fort Simpson, Fort Good Hope, and Pangnirtung area somewhat lacking and often times seem overly romanticized.

[Brendan Campisi]

What if you read a lot of Jameson, Adorno and Poulantzas while traveling to Dene and Inuit communities in the 'Canadian' far North? You still might not produce this book, but Peter Kulchyski did. A passionate and sharply-argued plea for the value of northern, land-based Indigenous modes of life as an alternative to the 'totalizing' power of capitalist modernity, displaying a deep conviction in the capacity of northern Indigenous people to define their own futures.