Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T10:04:35.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Unequal exchange: western economic logic and Inuit/Qablunaat research relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2013

April Dutheil ,
Frank Tester  and
Jordan Konek
April Dutheil
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, University of British Columbia, 2080 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V61 1Z2, Canada ([email protected])
Frank Tester
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, University of British Columbia, 2080 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V61 1Z2, Canada ([email protected])
Jordan Konek
Affiliation:
P.O. Box 107, Arviat, Nunavut X0E 0E0, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For some time, Inuit have made it clear that they wish to play a more substantial role in research with implications for themselves and their territory. To understand how researchers communicate and relate to each other, cultural analysis is often employed. Although cultural differences are relevant to understanding problems in the conduct of research, limiting differences to these realities is overly deterministic and essentialist. Many differences arising in the research process are products of social constructions found in Canadian culture and, increasingly, in Inuit communities. The paper re-examines the complexities of cross-class relations, focusing on how different relations to money, as a proxy for other relations characteristic of the capitalist mode of production, consumption and commodification, impact Inuit interaction with western-educated researchers. Using the Nanisiniq Arviat History Project in the community of Arviat, Nunavut Territory Canada, as a case study, the paper is a qualitative analysis of miscommunication resulting from cross-class differences. The Nanisiniq project was a two-year participatory action research project bringing Inuit youth and elders together to rediscover, interpret and apply knowledge of their history and culture to contemporary social issues affecting them.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 140 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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

Ablonczy-Mih’alyka, L. 2008. Workplace discourse between people with different cultural backgrounds. Hungarian Electronic Journal of Sciences 1. Manuscript LIN-081029-A.Google Scholar
Armstrong, P. 2007. Health care ‘reform’: privitization and its impact on women. In: Samuelson, L. and Antony, W. (editors). Power and resistance: critical thinking about Canadian social issues. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing: 333–355.Google Scholar
Bellengee-Morris, C. 2002. Culture for sale: perspectives on colonialism and self determination and therelationship to authenticity and tourism. Studies in Art Education. 43 (3): 232–245.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1986. The forms of capital. In: Richardson, J. (editor). Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education. New York: Greenwood: 241–258.Google Scholar
Bonsu, S. 2008. Ghanaian attitudes towards money in consumer culture. International Journal of Consumer Studies. 32 (2): 171–178.Google Scholar
Durvasula, S. and Lysonski, S.. 2010. Money, money, money- How do attitudes toward money impact vanity and materialism? The case of young Chinese consumers. Journal of Consumer Marketing 27 (2): 169–179.Google Scholar
Falicov, C.J. 2001. The cultural meaning of money: the case of Latinos and Anglo Americans. American Behavioral Scientist 45 (2): 313–328.Google Scholar
Furnham, A. 1984. Many sides of the coin: the psychology of money usage. Personality and Individual Differences 5 (5): 501–509.Google Scholar
Ger, G. and Belk, R.W.. 1996. Cross-cultural differences in materialism. Journal of Economic Psychology. 17 (1): 55–77.Google Scholar
Gombay, N. 2010. Making a living: place, food and economy in an Inuit community. Saskatoon:Purich Publishing.Google Scholar
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Nunavut Research Institute. 2006. Negotiating research relationships withInuit communities: a guide for researchers. URL http://www.research.utoronto.ca/ethics/pdf/human/nonspecific/Negotiating%20Rsearch%20Relationships%20with%20Inuit%20Communities.pdf. (accessed 11 November 2011)Google Scholar
Jenness, D. 1964. Eskimo administration: II Canada. Ottawa: Arctic Institute of North America (Technical paper no.16): 110.Google Scholar
Knuttila, M. 2007. The state and social issues: theoretical considerations. In: Samuelson, L., and Antony, W. (editors). Power and resistance: critical thinking about Canadian social issues. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing: 16–49.Google Scholar
Marx, K. 1959. Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. (translator Mulligan, M.). Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
McQuaig, L. and Brooks, N.. 2010.The trouble with billionaires. Toronto: Penguin Canada.Google Scholar
Medina, J., Saegert, J. and Gresham, A.. 1996. Comparison of Mexican-American and Anglo-Americanattitudes toward money. Journal of Consumer Affairs. 30 (1): 124–145.Google Scholar
Mitchell, M. 1996. From talking chiefs to native corporate elite. Montreal and Kingston, ON: McGill–Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Nunavut Research Institute. 2012. 2010 Compendium of research in Nunavut. URL: http://www.nri.nu.ca. (accessed 23 August 2012).Google Scholar
Oswalt, W. 1979. Eskimos and explorers. California: Chandler and Sharp.Google Scholar
Riches, D. 1975. Cash, credit and gambling in a modern Eskimo economy: speculations on origins of spheres of economic exchange. Man New Series. 10 (1): 21–33.Google Scholar
Roseberry, W. 1997. Marx and anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 25–46.Google Scholar
Ronwanièn:te Jocks, C. 1996. Spirituality for sale: sacred knowledge in the consumer age. American Indian Quarterly. 20 (3/4): 415–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Root, A. 2007. Market citizenship: experiments in democracy and globalization. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M.Culture and practical reason. 1976. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Simmel, G. 1900. The philosophy of money. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Statistics Canada. 2006. Inuit in Canada: selected findings of the 2006 census. Ottawa: Catalogue number 97558-X. URL:http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008x/2008002/article/10712-eng.htm. (accessed 20 May 2012).Google Scholar
Stern, P. 2005. Wage labour, housing policy and the nucleation of Inuit households. Arctic Anthropology. 42 (2): 66–81.Google Scholar
Tester, F.J. and Kulchyski, P.. 1994. Tammarniit (mistakes): Inuit relocation in the eastern Arctic 1939–63. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, E.P. 1966. The making of the English working class. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Trigg, A. 2001. Veblen, Bourdieu, and conspicuous consumption. Journal of Economics. 35 (1): 99–115.Google Scholar
van der Geest, S. 1997. Money and respect: the changing value of old age in rural Ghana. Journal of the International African 67 (4): 534–559.Google Scholar
Varman, R. and Belk, R.. 2008. Weaving a web: subaltern consumers, rising consumer culture, and television. Marketing Theory 8 (3): 227–252.Google Scholar
Veblen, T. 1899. The collected works of Thorstein Veblen. Vol.1. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Voyageur, C.J. and Calliou, B.. 2007. Aboriginal economic development and the struggle for self government. In: Samuelson, L., and Antony, W. (editors). Power and resistance: critical thinking about Canadian social issues. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing: 135–160.Google Scholar
Wenzel, G. 2000. Sharing, money, and modern Inuit subsistence: Obligation and reciprocity at ClydeRiver, Nunavut. Senri Ethnolgoical Studies. 5:63.Google Scholar
Yalnizyan, A. 2010. The rise of Canada's richest 1%, growing gap project. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. URL: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/rise-canadasrichest-1. (accessed 19 November 2011).Google Scholar