Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T09:16:07.155Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sharing or commoditising? A discussion of some of the socio-economic implications of Nunavik's Hunter Support Program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

Nicole Gombay
Nicole Gombay*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 119 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Appadurai, A. 1986. Introduction: commodities and the politics of value. In: Appadurai, A. (editor). The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 3–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbess, S.E. 1967. Values and socio-economic change: the George River case. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, McGill University, Montreal.Google Scholar
Balikci, A. 1960. Some acculturative trends among the eastern Canadian Eskimos. Anthropologica 2 (1): 139–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balikci, A. 1964. Development of basic socio-economic units in two Eskimo communities. Ottawa: National Museum of Canada.Google Scholar
Baudrillard, J. 1963. Simulations. New York: Simiotext(e), Inc.Google Scholar
Bennett, J., and Rowley, S.D.M.. 2004. Uqalurait: an oral history of Nunavut. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernard, N. 2006. Nunavik comparative price index 2006. Quebec City: Université Laval.Google Scholar
Bodenhorn, B. 1990. ‘I'm not the great hunter, my wife is’ Iñupiat and anthropological models of gender. Études/Inuit/Studies 14 (1–2): 55–74.Google Scholar
Bodenhorn, B. 2000. ‘It's good to know who your relatives are but we were taught to share with everybody’: shares and sharing among Inupiaq households. In: Wenzel, G.W., Hovelsrud-Broda, G., and Kishigami, N. (editors). The social economy of sharing: resource allocation and modern hunter-gatherers. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 53): 27–60.Google Scholar
Bohannan, P. 1967. The impact of money on an African subsistence economy. In: Dalton, G. (editor). Tribal and peasant economies. American Museum Sourcebooks in Anthropology, New York: The Natural History Press: 123–135.Google Scholar
Burch, E. Jr. 1988. Modes of exchange in north-west Alaska. In: Ingold, T., Riches, D., and Woodburn, J. (editors). Hunters and gatherers: property, power and ideology. Vol. 2. Oxford: Berg Publishers Ltd: 95–109.Google Scholar
Canada. 1996. The report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: the north. Ottawa: Ministry of Supply and Services Canada (Perspectives and Realities Vol. 4). URL: www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sj35_e.html (accessed 21 December 2007).Google Scholar
Caulfield, R.A. 1997. Greenlanders, whales and whaling: sustainability and self-determination in the Arctic. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.Google Scholar
Cesa, Y. 2002. Échange commercial et usages monétaires non-marchands dans le cadre du programme d'aide aux chasseurs du Nunavik. Études/Inuit/Studies 26 (2): 175–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chabot, M. 2001. De la production domestique au marché: l'économie comtemporaine des familles Inuit du Nunavik. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Deptartment of Sociology, Université Laval.Google Scholar
Chabot, M. 2003. Economic changes, household strategies, and social relations of Contemporary Nunavik Inuit. Polar Record 39 (208): 19–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chabot. 2004. Kaangituuruma! As long as I am not hungry! Pontiac, Québec: Community Health Research Program Nunavik Regional Health Board of Social Services and Corporation of the Northern Village of Kuujjuaq.Google Scholar
Collings, P., Wenzel, G., and Condon, R.G.. 1998. Modern food sharing networks and community integration in the central Canadian Arctic. Arctic 51 (4): 301–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coombe, R.J. 2007. The work of rights at the limits of governmentality. Anthropologica 49 (2): 284–289.Google Scholar
Damas, D. 1972. Central Eskimo systems of food sharing. Ethnology 11 (3): 220–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewailly Dewailly, E., Blanchet, C., Chaumette, P., Receveur, O., Lawn, J., Nobmann, E. D., Pars, T., Bjerregaard, P., and Proulx, J.-F.. 2000. Diet profile of circumpolar Inuit. Québec City: Université Laval.Google Scholar
Dombrowski, K. 2007. Subsistence livelihood, native identity and Internal differentiation in southeast Alaska. Anthropologica 49 (2): 211–229.Google Scholar
Duhaime, G. 1990. La chasse Inuit subventionnée: tradition et modernité. Recherches sociographiques 31 (1): 45–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duhaime, G. 2007. Socio-economic profile of Nunavik 2006. Québec City: Univesité Laval.Google Scholar
Duhaime, G., Chabot, M., and Gaudreault, M.. 2002. Food Consumption Patterns and Socio-economic Factors among the Inuit of Nunavik. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 41 (2): 91–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eqilaq, L.N. 2002. The ‘People of the Islands’ need Nunavut's help. Nunatsiaq News 21 June 2002. URL: www.nunatsiaq.com/opinionEditorial/letters.html, (accessed 26 June, 2002).Google Scholar
Fafchamps, M. 1992. Solidarity networks in preindustrial societies: rational peasants with a moral economy. Economic Development and Change 41 (1): 147–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feit, H.A. 1991. Gifts of the land: hunting territories, guaranteed incomes and the construction of social relations in James Bay Cree society. In: Peterson, N., and Matsuyama, T. (editors). Cash, commoditisation and changing forager. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 30): 223–268.Google Scholar
Freeman, M.M.R. 1996a. Health and social order: Inuit dietary traditions in a changing world. In: Follér, M-L., and Hansson, L.O. (editors). Human ecology and health: adaptation to a changing world. Göteborg: Göteborg University, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of the Human Condition: 57–71.Google Scholar
Freeman, M.M.R. 1996b. Why Mattak and other Kalaalimerngit [local foods] matter. In: Culture and social research in Greenland 95/96. Essays in honour of Robert Petersen. Greenland: Ilisimatusarfik/Atuatkkiorfik 45–53.Google Scholar
Freeman, M.M.R. 2005. ‘Just one more time before I die’: securing the relationship between Inuit and whales in the Arctic regions. In: Kishigami, N., and Savelle, J.M. (editors). Indigenous use and management of marine resources. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 67): 59–76.Google Scholar
Godbout, J. 1998. The world of the gift. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gombay, N. 2005. The commoditisation of country foods in Nunavik: an overview of its development, applications, and significance. Arctic 58 (2): 115–128.Google Scholar
Graburn, N.H.H. 1969. Eskimos without Igloos: social and economic development in Sugluk. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. Ltd.Google Scholar
Gudeman, 2001. The anthropology of economy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.Google Scholar
Hensel, C. 2001. Telling our selves: ethnicity and discourse in southwestern Alaska. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hovelsrud-Broda, G. 2000. ‘Sharing’, transfers, transactions and the concept of generalized reciprocity. In: Kishigami, N., and Savelle, J.M. (editors). Indigenous use and management of marine resources. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 67): 193–214.Google Scholar
Hunt, R.C. 2000. Forager food sharing economy: transfers and exchange. In: Kishigami, N., and Savelle, J.M. (editors). Indigenous use and management of marine resources. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 67): 7–26.Google Scholar
Illich, I. 1971. Deschooling society. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Kativik Regional Government. 1998. Annual report 1998. Support program for Inuit beneficiaries for their hunting, fishing, and trapping activities. Kuujjuaq: Kativik Regional Government.Google Scholar
Kishigami, N. 2000. Contemporary Inuit food sharing and the Hunter Support Program of Nunavik, Canada. In: Kishigami, N., and Savelle, J.M. (editors). Indigenous use and management of marine resources. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 67): 171–192.Google Scholar
Kishigami, N. 2001. A new form of resource sharing practices among the contemporary Nunavik Inuit in Canada. Québec (paper presented on 17 May 2001at ICASS IV (International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences), Québec City, 16–20 May 2001).Google Scholar
Kishigami, N. 2004. A new typology of food-sharing practices among hunter-gatherers, with a special focus on Inuit examples. Journal of Anthropological Research 60 (3): 341–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopytoff, I. 1986. The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process. In: Appadurai, A. (editor). The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 64–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langdon, S.J. 1991. The integration of cash and subsistence in southwest Alaskan Yupik Eskimo communities. In: Peterson, N., and Matsuyama, T. (editors). Cash, commoditisation and changing forager. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 30): 269–291.Google Scholar
Lévesque, C., de Juriew, D., Lussier, C., and Trudeau, N.. 2002. Between abundance and scarcity: food and the institution of sharing among the Inuit of the circumpolar region during the recent historical period. In: Duhaime, G. (editor). Sustainable food security in the Arctic: state of knowledge. Canada: CCI Press: 103–115.Google Scholar
MacDonald, G. 2000. Economies and personhood: demand sharing among the Wiradjuri of New South Wales. In: Kishigami, N., and Savelle, J.M. (editors). Indigenous use and management of marine resources. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 67): 87–111.Google Scholar
Martin, T. 2000. Hunting Support Program in Nunavik: a study of reciprocal and associative solidarity among two Inuit communities. In: Asselin, H., Bourcier, A., Lafortune, V., Morin, A., Rodrigue, J., Rousseau, J., St-Pierre, D. and Tulloch, S. (editors). Proceedings of the 6th National Student Conference on Northern Studies, Université Laval, May 5–7, 2000: 42–46.Google Scholar
Martin, T. 2003. De la banquise au congelateur: mondialisation et culture au Nunavik. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval.Google Scholar
Moeran, B. 1995. The cultural construction of value: ‘subsistence’, ‘commercial’ and other terms in the debate about whaling. MAST (Marine Anthropological Studies) 5 (2): 1–15.Google Scholar
Murphy, R. F. and Steward, J. H.. 1955. Tappers and Trappers: Parallel Process in Acculturation. Economic Development and Change 4: 335–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, M., Natcher, D.C., and Hickey, C.G.. 2005. Social and economic barriers to subsistence harvesting in a northern Alberta aboriginal community. Anthropologica 47 (2): 289–301.Google Scholar
Nunivaat: Nunavik Statistics Program. Nunavik, expenses of the Hunter Support Program, by community, 1983 to 2004" www.nunivaat.org/tableviewer.aspx?id=6059&S=2, (accessed 23 December, 2007).Google Scholar
Nuttall, M. 1991. Sharing and the Ideology of subsistence in a Greenlandic sealing community. Polar Record 27 (162): 217–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nuttall, M. 1992. Arctic homeland: kinship, community and development in northwest Greenland. London: Belhaven Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Nuttall, M. 2000. Choosing kin: sharing and subsistence in a Greenlandic community. In: Schweitzer, P.P. (editor). Dividends of kinship: meanings and uses of social relations. London: Routledge: 33–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oakes, J., and Riewe, R.. 1997. Culture, economy and ecology: case studies from the circumpolar region. Millbrook, ON: The Cider Press.Google Scholar
Paine, R. 1977. The path to welfare colonialism. In: Paine, R. (editor). The white Arctic. Canada: Memorial University of Newfoundland: University of Toronto Press: 7–28.Google Scholar
Parry, J., and Bloch, M.. 1989. Introduction. In: Bloch, M., and Parry, J. (editors). Money and the morality of exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, N. 1991a. Introduction. In: Peterson, N., and Matsuyama, T. (editors). Cash, commoditisation and changing forager. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 30): 1–16.Google Scholar
Peterson, N. 1991b Cash, commoditisation and authenticity: when do aboriginal people stop being hunter-gatherers? In: Peterson, N., and Matsuyama, T. (editors). Cash, commoditisation and changing forager. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 30): 67–90.Google Scholar
Polanyi, K. 1957a. The great transformation. Boston: Beacon Paperback.Google Scholar
Polanyi, K. 1957b. The economy as instituted process. In: Polanyi, K., Arsenberg, C.M., and Pearson, H.W. (editors). Trade and market in the early empires: economies in history and theory. New York: The Free Press: 243–270.Google Scholar
Poppel, B., Kruse, J., Duhaime, G., and Abryutina, L.. 2007. SLiCA [Survey of living conditions in the Arctic] results. Anchorage: University of Alaska, Anchorage: Institute of Social and Economic Research.Google Scholar
Porter, P.W. 1987. Wholes and fragments: reflections on the economy of affection, capitalism, and the human cost of development. Geografiska Annaler B. 69 (1): 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Québec, Government. 1982. An Act respecting the support program for Inuit beneficiaries of the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement for their hunting, fishing and trapping activities. Québec: Editeur officiel du Québec (Bill 83 (Chapter 47), passed by the National Assembly of Québec).Google Scholar
Québec, Government. 1998. The James Bay and Northern Quebec agreement: agreement between the Government of Quebec, the Grand Council of the Crees (of Québec), the Northern Quebec Inuit Association, and the Government of Canada. Québec: Editeur officiel du Québec.Google Scholar
St-Pierre, D. 2001. Food circulation in northern Labrador: between gift and trade. Québec (paper presented at ICASS IV (International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences), Québec City, 16–20 May 2001).Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. 1974. Stone age economics. London: Tavistock Publications Ltd.Google Scholar
Sansom, B. 1988. A grammar of exchange. In: Keen, I. (editor). Being black: aboriginal cultures in ‘settled’ Australia. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies: 159–177.Google Scholar
Scott, C.H. and Feit, H.A.. 1992. Income security for Cree hunters-ecological, social and economic effects. Montreal: McGill University (McGill Programme in the Anthropology of Development Monograph Series).Google Scholar
Seavoy, R.E. 2000. Subsistence and economic development. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar
Simmel, G. 1978. The philosophy of money. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.Google Scholar
Stairs, A., and Wenzel, G.. 1992. I am I and the Environment. The Journal of Indigenous Studies. 3 (1): 1–12.Google Scholar
Statistics Canada. 2006. Harvesting and community well-being among Inuit in the Canadian Arctic: preliminary findings from the 2001 aboriginal peoples survey – survey of living conditions in the Arctic. Statistics Canada, Ottawa.Google Scholar
Turner, E. 1990. The whale decides: Eskimos' and ethnographer's shared consciousness in the ice. Études/Inuit/Studies 14 (1–2): 39–42.Google Scholar
Vallee, F.G. 1967. Povungnetuk and its cooperative: a case study in community change. Ottawa: Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.Google Scholar
Wachowich, N. 1999. Saqiyuk. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weihs, F., Higgins, R., and Boult, D.. 1993. The northern economy: a review and assessment of the economic utilisation and potential of country foods in the northern economy. Ottawa: Ministry of Supply and Services Canada (Research report for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples).Google Scholar
Wenzel, G.W. 1981. Clyde Inuit adaptation and ecology: the organization of subsistence. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada.Google Scholar
Wenzel, G. 1991. Animal rights, human rights: ecology, economy, and ideology in the Canadian Arctic. London: Belhaven.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wenzel, G. 2000. Sharing, money, and modern Inuit subsistence: obligation and reciprocity at Clyde River, Nunavut. In: Kishigami, N., and Savelle, J.M. (editors). Indigenous use and management of marine resources. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri Ethnological Studies 67): 61–85.Google Scholar
Wenzel, G. 2001. ‘Nunamiut’ or ‘Kablonamiut’: Which ‘Identity’ best fits Inuit (and does it matter?). Études/Inuit/Studies 25 (1–2): 37–52.Google Scholar
Wenzel, G. 2005. Canadian Inuk subsistence and economy. In: Müller-Wille, L., Kingsley, M.C.S., and Nielsen, S.S., (editors). Socio-economic research on management systems of living resources: strategies, recommendations and examples. Proceedings of the Workshop on Social and Economic Research related to the management of marine resources in West Greenland, 18–20 November 2003. Nuuk: Greenland Institute of Natural Resources: 146–151.Google Scholar
Williamson, R.G. 1974. Eskimo underground: socio-cultural change in the Canadian central arctic. Uppsala: Institutionen för allmän och jämförande etnografi vid Uppsala Universitet.Google Scholar
Willmott, W.E. 1959. An Eskimo community (Port Harrison/Inukjuaq). Unpublished MA dissertation, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, McGill University.Google Scholar