The Influence Aging, Social Structure, and Money on Subsistence Hunting among Adult Inuit in Two Canadian Communities

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

This research is an examination of the interconnections between the factors that influence individual participation in the Inuit subsistence system in two small Inuit communities in Nunavut (Clyde River) and the Northwest Territories (Holman). Focusing primarily on the cohort of adults born between 1955-1970, the working hypothesis of this project is that active involvement in subsistence is predicated on five interrelated factors, including (1) age and maturation; (2) position within social structure; (3) position within social networks; (4) access to non-traditional capital; and (5) access to material culture resources. All of these factors have been identified by recent research as framing an individual within the wider subsistence system. PIs Collings and Wenzel postulate that an individual's status in one of these principal domains may affect that Inuk's status in other domains, which in turn influence involvement in subsistence. The objective in this application is to understand the situational interplay between these factors. Additionally, this project will document the degree to which the expansion of the wage sector of the economy over the past decade has modified or enhanced the material and social relations of subsistence systems. The researchers postulate that participation in the subsistence economy for this cohort of men is not an alternative economic strategy for those who cannot find wage labor employment. Rather, we hypothesize that access to non-traditional capital has, over the past decade, become more and more critical to the success of subsistence practice.