Community, obligation, and food: lessons from the moral geography of inuit

Gombay, Nicole

doi:10.1111/j.1468-0467.2010.00350.x

Cited by 15 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…These obligations are based on reciprocal interconnections, on the basis of which, people are adjured to share the land and resources with others who develop and respect moral relations with the land and with those inhabiting it. According to Inuit beliefs, animals require Inuit to share them with others (Gombay, 2010). Should they not do so, they risk the animals knowing of such behaviour, and withholding themselves.…”

Section: Personhood Citizenship Subjectivity and Indigenous Peoplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“There are mentalities that need changing”: Constructing personhood, formulating citizenship, and performing subjectivities on a settler colonial frontier

Gombay

2015

Political Geography

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a b s t r a c tSettler colonial nations are sites of legal pluralism in which encounters between differing constructions of citizenship are formulated. These can involve customary, differentiated, and universal modes of citizenship. But the relationships amongst these are problematic, as are the ways they play out in the performance of subjectivities. To understand these dynamics, we need to think about ideas of personhood that are at their root. Based on research in Nunavik, this article focuses on how, through wildlife management, notions of personhood are being legally codified, particularly in relation to property. It examines the degree to which official ideas of personhood coincide with Indigenous ones in the construction of citizenship, and considers how these combine with property relations in the performance of subjectivities. Enforcing state wildlife regulations has altered the moral codes that define what persons are and determine how they should interact with one another. This research underscores the contradictions that arise as a result of codifying notions of personhood and citizenship in the context of settler colonialism.

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Section: Personhood Citizenship Subjectivity and Indigenous Peoplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“There are mentalities that need changing”: Constructing personhood, formulating citizenship, and performing subjectivities on a settler colonial frontier

Gombay

2015

Political Geography

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“…Gombay (), for example, recounts how although the Inuit of the Eastern Canadian Arctic have serious social‐ecological problems, their moral geography of obligation, specifically around food sharing, is the basis of community construction and maintenance. In the North Rupununi, a durable ‘community’ is tied up with identity, but it also has important implications for approaches to managing natural resources.…”

Section: Emerging Themesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of social memory in natural resource management: insights from participatory video

Mistry

Berardi

Haynes³

et al. 2013

Trans Inst British Geog

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This research looked at the role of social memory for adaptive natural resource management within indigenous communities of the North Rupununi social-ecological system (SES) in Guyana. Secondary data from historic texts and archives were first used to build a social and ecological history of the North Rupununi SES. Current social memory 'in use' was then surfaced through a Participatory Video (PV) process led by the indigenous community. From this, a compendium of key narratives of the communities' social memory was identified and modes of social memory creation, transmittance and modification were revealed. These highlighted the role of the social memory in identity formation and self representation, how the social memory maintains and reinforces community connectedness and collectiveness, and how PV supports indigenous ways of communication, especially the visual. The study provides some valuable insights into the dynamic nature of the North Rupununi SES social memory, how it is used to make sense of the world and how PV could potentially play a role.

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“…More generally, scholars have noted that ethics of sharing, reciprocity, and redistribution are common to Aboriginal conceptions of property (e.g. Ingold 1986;Tully 2000;Gombay 2010). What may appear as the absence of clear property rules -the sharing of lands and resources, for example, or the redistribution of wealth through ceremonies such as potlatches -actually represent ways of organizing relations between different social groups with respect to important properties, including lands and natural resources.…”

Section: Western and Aboriginal Propertymentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards shared ownership: property, geography, and treaty making in british columbia

Egan

2013

Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography

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In British Columbia, Canada's westernmost province, unresolved Aboriginal claims to land remain highly contentious. Since the early 1990s, a unique treaty negotiation process has sought to resolve questions about land ownership and establish a new relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Crown. After almost two decades, the limitations of this treaty process are increasingly evident and answers to the land question remain elusive. This article examines this treaty‐making process through a property lens, focusing on how particular models of property are privileged by and produced through this approach to treaty. I argue that the treaty process, as currently structured, works to entrench dominant Western forms of property across Aboriginal territories in a highly separate and unequal manner, and as such, serves to reinscribe asymmetrical relations of power between Aboriginal peoples and the Crown. To a considerable extent, this asymmetrical approach to property making explains the lack of progress towards treaties. The final part of the article explores alternative approaches to treaty proposed by Aboriginal groups. I argue that these proposals, which reflect Aboriginal understandings of property, offer a new and more promising direction for treaty making. In particular, the emphasis on sharing lands and resources, as well as the wealth generated from these, provides a path to reconcile competing property interests and to build a new and more respectful relationship between the Crown and Aboriginal peoples. I suggest that the difficulties of treaty making in British Columbia reflect broader challenges associated with land restitution and reconciliation in settler colonies.

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Community, obligation, and food: lessons from the moral geography of inuit

Cited by 15 publications

References 26 publications

“There are mentalities that need changing”: Constructing personhood, formulating citizenship, and performing subjectivities on a settler colonial frontier

“There are mentalities that need changing”: Constructing personhood, formulating citizenship, and performing subjectivities on a settler colonial frontier

The role of social memory in natural resource management: insights from participatory video

Towards shared ownership: property, geography, and treaty making in british columbia

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