This collection includes a variety of forms - art, photography, personal narrative, translation and cross disciplinary scholarly essay - to discuss many levels and kinds of loss: cultural assimilation and change, environmental devastation, language loss, personal and collective losses, community tragedies, and a loss of continuity and sense of home and place. The book as a whole considers the impact of these losses and their relationship to culture, memory, and identity. As part of this consideration, Despite This Loss celebrates and supports new and established lines of inquiry into the structures of feeling that constitute place and belonging. The collection includes work by a new generation of cultural workers whose claims to and dreams for this place hold promise and provide a vibrant and provocative array of perspectives on cultural loss.

Translator, editor and educator Elizabeth Yeoman is the author of books, articles and documentaries about language, culture, translation, walking, land and memory. Most recently, she co-translated and co-edited Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep the Land Alive (University of Manitoba Press) with its author, Innu elder and environmental activist Tshaukuesh Elizabeth Penashue. She lives in St. John’s NL. 

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Ursula A. Kelly is a professor in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University. She is the author of several books and essays. Most recently, she wrote and produced Mentioned in Song (MMaP), the first recording of the original songs and recitations of early woods workers of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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"...this is a powerful collection that makes serious efforts to understand significant aspects of Newfoundland and Labrador identity and culture — and to move on from there."

Marilyn Porter, Newfoundland and Labrador Studies