Narrating Northern places: Space, place, and environmentalism in Whitehorse, Yukon

here are many factors that influence and frame people's relationships and engagements with environmentalism. In this project I look at how the notion of place, and people's relationships with landscapes merge with people's senses of and relationships with, environmentalism in Whitehorse, Yukon. A theoretical framework informed by Foucaultian ideas about power, knowledge, and discourse, the concept of dialogism, and the notions of space, place, and landscape serves as the foundation upon which this investigation is launched. Of interest is how places are made out of Northern spaces. What social, political, and economic forces inform and frame this process? How are these relationships articulated, internalized, and resisted through Yukon residents' personal place narratives and senses of place? And how do such relations intersect with Yukon residents engagements with the discourses and practices of environmentalism?;This research was conducted over six months (May--October 2003) in Whitehorse, Yukon. During this time I spoke with forty members of the community in addition to conducting participant observation throughout the community. There are central master narratives guiding how Yukon landscapes come to be perceived and experienced. Narratives of the Yukon as a blank, wild, unpeopled, free space run throughout political, environmental, economic, and personal constructions and perceptions these landscapes. Although representing different values and interests, the majority of discursive place-making (both within and from outside) of Yukon landscapes assume this colonial, classed and raced view of the North.;This research was conducted under Yukon-Canada Scientists and Explores Act Research Licence...