Kinauvit?, Norma Dunning
Kinauvit?, Norma Dunning
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Kinauvit?
What's Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter's Search for her Grandmother

Author: Norma Dunning

Narrator: Norma Dunning

Unabridged: 6 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/01/2023


Synopsis

"From the winner of the 2021 Governor General's Award for literature, a revelatory look into an obscured piece of Canadian history: what was then called the Eskimo Identification Tag System
In 2001, Dr. Norma Dunning applied to the Nunavut Beneficiary program, requesting enrolment to legally solidify her existence as an Inuk woman. But in the process, she was faced with a question she could not answer, tied to a colonial institution retired decades ago: 'What was your disc number?'

"Still haunted by this question years later, Dunning took it upon herself to reach out to Inuit community members who experienced the Eskimo Identification Tag System first-hand, providing vital perspective and nuance to the scant records available on the subject. Written with incisive detail and passion, Dunning provides readers with a comprehensive look into a bureaucracy sustained by the Canadian government for over thirty years, neglected by history books but with lasting echoes revealed in Dunning’s intimate interviews with affected community members. Not one government has taken responsibility or apologized for the E-number system to date — a symbol of the blatant dehumanizing treatment of the smallest Indigenous population in Canada.
A necessary and timely offering, Kinauvit? provides a critical record and response to a significant piece of Canadian history, collecting years of research, interviews and personal stories from an important voice in Canadian literature." - Douglas & McIntyre

About The Author

Dr. Norma Dunning "is an Inuk writer as well as a scholar, researcher, professor and grandmother. Her short story collection Tainna: The Unseen Ones won the 2021 Governor General’s Award for literature, and her previous short story collection, Annie Muktuk and Other Stories (University of Alberta Press, 2017), received the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, the Howard O’Hagan Award for short stories and the Bronze Foreword INDIES Award for short stories. She lives in Edmonton, AB." -Douglas & McIntyre


Reviews

Goodreads review by Tina on October 22, 2022

KINAUVIT?: What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for Her Grandmother by Dr. Norma Dunning was very informative! In 2001, Dunning applied to the Nunavut Beneficiary System and was asked the question “what was your disc number?” even though the then-called Eskimo Identificat......more

Goodreads review by Eva on September 30, 2022

Kinauvit? What’s your name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for her Grandmother is a nonfiction book by Inuk author Dr. Norma Dunning. Norma begins the book by sharing how she had attempted to enrol herself and her sons on the Inuit Enrolment List in 2001 and ran into a roadblock when......more

Goodreads review by Enid on December 21, 2022

A fascinating exploration of the EIC system. Lots to be learned from reading this, but I will admit that more than once I felt like she was moving too quickly and glossing over some aspects. At only 181 pages - 30 of which are bibliography, appendices and index - there was lots of room to dig even de......more

Goodreads review by Knitography on May 05, 2025

I knew nothing at all about the Eskimo Identification Canada disc system when I picked up this book, and it turns out that this is not merely a gap in what was, admittedly, an incomplete and inaccurate education in Canadian history, courtesy of the Canadian school system. Forty-odd years after the d......more

Goodreads review by Keisha on December 03, 2024

Inuk woman writes about Eskimo identification disc system in Canada , a bit about her own family history and struggles to get recognized as Inuit. Disc system was in place 35ish years mid 1900s. Notably residential schools were ending for indigenous Canadians at the same time systems of control were......more