Using the case of an Inuit settlement in Northern Québec I explore the interactions between place, identity, scale, and the construction of community. This case study provides a discussion of what a relational construction of the identity of place means in practice. Focusing on country foods—foods that people catch from the land, water, and sky—I describe how the getting of these foods affects Inuit notions of place and constructions of identity and community. Sharing country foods is required in order to ensure future success in hunting and fishing. Such sharing and the social capital it generates were prerequisites for survival in the days when Inuit were living on the land in communities that were constantly changing as people traveled from one location to another in search of food. The move to settlements has brought about changes in Inuit notions of sharing food and ideas about identity. By using a particular event in one Inuit community, I explore the ways in which Inuit have developed a relational sense of identity as a result of the changing places and scales in which they live as occupants of fixed settlements who retain the mores of life on the land. As they call upon different identities, Inuit are invisibly shifting between places. I argue that there is a distinction between a settlement and a community, and that as people adjust to life in settlements they learn to manage their shifting places and shifting identities strategically so that they are able to benefit maximally from the conventions appropriate to both life on the land and life within settlements.
The article considers the perceptions of Inuit in one settlement in Nunavik regarding the dynamic relations between market and subsistence economies. The socio-economic role of country foods in Inuit society are described followed by a discussion about the impacts of the Hunter Support Program (HSP) on Inuit society. A hybrid institution, the HSP buys country foods in order to give them away. Based on interviews that included Inuit purveyors to, and administrators of, the programme, the article discusses some socio-economic effects of commoditisation of country foods on subsistence economies and explores the ways in which this food moves in and out of commodity status. It is argued that these shifts are linked to conflicting notions of value. Some Inuit justify the existence of the HSP because they perceive it to be an essentially non-Inuit institution which lies outside the realm of customary socio-economic organization and thereby frees them from the need to observe those rules strictly while providing them with the income to be able to respect the requirement to share food amongst Inuit. Others express reservations about the programme because it elicits behaviours amongst Inuit that they perceive as threatening their socio-economic reproduction. It is argued that the HSP, an institution that both mimics and breaks with tradition, one which is designed to help Inuit to promote the subsistence way of life yet does so in the context of at least some components of the market, is an example of Wenzel's (2001) contention that the analytical distinction between acculturation and adaptation is not a matter of oppositions, but rather, part of a whole.
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to show that, until the 1960s, subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering were the mainstay of the economy for Inuit in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. This economy was sustained by the moral imperative that food should be shared with others whenever possible. The article explores the experience of one man in Nunavik (Northern Québec) who has started a business selling food. Design/methodology/approach -The paper shows that regulatory challenges facing the industry are considered in relation to the moral dilemmas that need to be confronted in moving from an economy based on sharing food to an economy predicated on market exchange. Practical implications -The paper concludes with a discussion about how this businessman has come to terms with his breaking of social norms about the sharing of food and his understanding of how, in doing so, he is representative of a new economic order amongst Inuit in Nunavik. Originality/value -The paper shows that this is an original and novel subject for study.
ABSTRACT. The article presents the historical roots of development policy vis-à-vis Canadian Inuit as it relates to the commoditization of country foods in the Canadian North, with particular reference to Nunavik. Although Inuit place an emphasis on sharing country foods, they have developed various mechanisms that allow them to be sold. Such sales are complicated for a number of reasons. Legislation at various levels of government either prohibits or severely restricts the commercial sale of country foods, particularly for an export market. Despite this, individual businesspeople, Makivik Corporation (the regional Inuit development agency), and the government-sponsored Hunter Support Program (HSP) have all, with varying degrees of success, started to commoditize country foods. The requirement to meet conservation measures and respect government processing standards has restricted the commercial development of these foods for export, which, in turn, has limited such development both by individuals and by Makivik Corporation. The HSP, which pays people to supply country foods that are then given away to beneficiaries under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, is the most accepted and successful form of commoditization. The reason for its success is twofold. First, regulations generally favour the development of a local market for country foods. Second, at an ethical level the HSP is tolerable to people because it both curbs the practice of selling country foods purely for individual self-interest and underscores sociality by replicating the Inuit tradition of sharing food with the community. Although Inuit are consumers of the commoditized country foods to some extent, the Inuit who produce those foods for sale insist that they do not sell them to other Inuit, but rather continue to share. They have made a teleological distinction between the sale of country foods to Inuit, which tradition inhibits, and the sale of country foods to institutions, which is acceptable. The latter removes country foods from the domestic sphere, thereby enabling Inuit to sell the foods without challenging the principle that they be shared.Key words: country foods, Inuit, Nunavik, Canada, economic development, commodity, Hunter Support Program, Makivik, commercialization, economy, sharing RÉSUMÉ. Dans cet article sont exposées les racines historiques de l'élaboration des politiques concernant les Inuit du Canada en ce qui a trait à la commercialisation de la nourriture traditionnelle dans le Nord canadien, en particulier au Nunavik. Bien que les Inuit mettent l'accent sur le partage de la nourriture traditionnelle, ils ont créé divers mécanismes qui leur permettent de la vendre. Ces transactions sont compliquées pour plusieurs raisons. La législation à divers paliers du gouvernement soit interdit la vente commerciale de nourriture traditionnelle, soit lui impose des restrictions très sévères, en particulier pour le marché d'exportation. Malgré cela, des gens d'affaires, la Société Makivik (l'agence de développement inuite régio...
Using Inuit as an illustration, this article discusses what it means to live in community, and argues that by taking people's moral geographies into account one may understand more fully the make-up of community. The article maintains that their moral geography creates a feeling among Inuit of obligation for the other. It is this obligation that serves as the basis for community. The article theorizes about the implications of internalized mores based on obligation, and discusses how, in contrast to the concept of rights, such mores contribute to the formation and maintenance of community. The article concludes that developing a situated understanding of people's moral geographies may help to expand our comprehension of community construction and maintenance.
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