Payne, Carol, Beth Greenhorn, Deborah Kigjugalik Webster, And Christian Williamson. 2022. Atiqput: Inuit Oral History and Project Naming. Montréal, Kingston London, and Chicago: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 264 pages.

In part one, the authors discuss the history of Project Naming, from the origins of the project, firsthand experiences of working with LAC and Nunavut Sivuniksavut (NS), and its future aspirations. In the introductions, the authors lay out the problematic nature of previous southerners’ ethnographic work with Inuit. According to the authors, early 20th-century ethnographic images of Inuit not only reflected a salvage paradigm based on the South colonial gaze but also depicted Inuit as being both primitive and vanishing, as the southern societies progressed. They then proceed to show how Project Naming rewrites this record of inaccuracies through the partnership of LAC and NS youth. By working with Project Naming, much of Inuit culture has been rewritten in the southern historical record from the voices of Elders in Inuit communities. Following the overview of Project Naming, Williamson and Webster focus ethnographically on the importance of Atiqput (our names) and on remembering Inuit culture through their Qaujimajatuaqangit or “IQ” (principles of Inuit traditional knowledge). They also privilege the use of interviews with Inuit Elders and activists such as Sally Kate Webster or Piita Irniq, who view photos of their old lifestyle and experience a sense of nostalgia. Other activists in this section note the importance of keeping their Inuktitut names. If it is lost through assimilation or lack of knowledge about the importance, one is disconnected from the ancestors with that name. The final part of this book explores the methodology of the project and its broader significance. This book is written firsthand by Inuit youth and Elders through their work and community efforts. Project Naming has been rooted in Inuit-centered pedagogy since the beginning of the 1980s. Nunavut Sivuniksavut (NS) students would take Library and Archives Canada photos home on Christmas break and show them to their Elders. Upon seeing the photos, the Elders would begin to tell stories about who and what was in the photos. By taking these photos home, the youth could connect with their Elders and rewrite the previous (incorrectly) written record. By the early 2000s, the significance of Project Naming had spread across Nunavut and the respective regions, which led to a deeper collaboration with NS as well as new connections with the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth (CLEY) and Nunavut Archives. Furthermore, Project Naming has extended its works with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to create the Nanivara (2012-2014) and Nanisiniq Arviat History Projects (2010-2012). Following the same format as Project Naming, these history projects used technology and new media as a basis for their work. Both projects digitalized and uploaded photography and movies on numerous media platforms, allowing for a more extensive crowdsourced identification system. Social media users could see the photographs in weekly newsletters and comment if they knew who was depicted. Each bulletin was written in English and Inuktitut to ensure a majority of the population understood the content. Media analysts would note the names and attempt to validate and record any shared information. The projects also engaged with other collaborations—ranging from art organizations (National Film Board of Canada and National Gallery of Canada) to Canadian universities (Carleton University and The University of British Columbia)—to recontextualize and recover the story behind these images. The Arviat History Projects’ work is now housed at the University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections, with over twenty-five years of painstaking work rewriting Inuit’s social and colonial history from the 1880s to 1990s. Beyond the immediate case study, Project Naming’s more considerable significance to anthropological literature speaks to a legacy of colonial visualization. Project …