Gough, J. (2000). History, representation, globalization and indigenous cultures: A Tasmanian perspective in Indigenous cultures in an interconnected world. Smith, C. and Ward, G. (Eds.) Vancouver: UBC Press.

While this chapter is significant for the understanding of globalization as an agent of colonization, and the efforts of Aboriginal peoples to to work toward decolonization through self-representative and self-determinant efforts, it’s application to my research efforts lies in the depiction of the systematic displacement and renaming of the Aboriginal peoples of Tasmania.  In renaming the lands taken after familiar and/or mythical places, the colonizers were at once removing thousands of years of history and from those places and inserting alternate ones.  Rather than create a new history with new locally-significant names, the colonizers legitimized their actions–as any new name with local significance would necessarily include account of the displacement of the indigenous population.  At the same time, this is evidence that there is also significance to place, though rarely acknowledged and arguably to a lesser degree, in dominant cultures.  This process may not have occurred as dramatically in other places as in Tasmania but it has been a frequent global occurrence nonetheless.  By recognizing the significance of place of all cultures, and building that significance together, it may be possible to leverage names as tools in the efforts toward decolonization.  Local examples of this include the official creation of the Nunavut Territory, returning the Queen Charlotte Islands to Haida Gwaii (NB. according to Wikipedia this is not their traditional name), and the naming of the Salish Sea to include the Straight of Georgia, Juan de Fuca Straight, Puget Sound and all their interconnecting and adjoining waters (NB. the intent of the naming of the Salish Sea was ecologically motivated, not culturally or politically, though there are cultural and political ramifications).  Significant to this discussion, but perhaps off topic from its intent is that with the exception of Nunavut, the other two name changes identified here did not accompany any transfer of actual power or increase in self-determinant ability.