Murray has a keen eye for observations rich with detail on multiple levels. I can nearly feel the crunch of snow under my feet and feel the drumbeat in a community dance. More importantly, he captures the tensions between generations, between tradition and technology, and between the idealized past and actual realities of life in an irrevocably altered culture. Of particular merit are his insights into psychological functions of traditional music and dance, creating identity and community connectedness, and joining the young people to a heritage that might otherwise evade their grasp. Notably, Murray himself appears to have gained the ability to understand and learn from communication via subtext, no small feat for an academic and something all scholars of culture should aspire to achieve.

Stephen Fox, University of Hawai'i Maui College

Murray’s research stands out because he grounds the concept of well-being squarely within cultural practice. The study of well-being among arctic peoples is an increasingly important topic, but the majority of this work attends to documenting “traditional” conceptions of well-being or simply asserts that engaging in “traditional practices” has positive outcomes for Inuit well-being. Murray’s book explores how cultural practices around drum dancing have been actively constructed and adapted to meet Inuit needs within the contemporary community. Murray’s work with drum dancers documents well-being as an active and creative process, in reference but not strict adherence to the values of their grandparents or great-grandparents. His ethnographically rich perspective details the economic, political, and social difficulties younger Inuit face as they try and find their way in a dynamic and uncertain social environment. The result is a work that makes a significant contribution to understanding well-being in the Arctic while documenting important cultural and ethnomusical processes.

Peter Collings