Settlements Kinship And Hunting Grounds In Traditional Greenland

This book is a pioneering effort in critical Arctic studies. The contributions identify and investigate some of the blind spots in human development in the Arctic that research in the social sciences had yet to broach. To this end, the authors tap a variety of critical approaches in fields spanning aesthetics, affect theory, biopolitics, critical geopolitics, Indigenous archaeology, intersectionality, legal anthropology, moral economy, narrative studies, neoliberal governmentality, queer studies and socio-legal studies. The chapters probe topics such as representations of the Arctic in contemporary art, the role of affects in postcolonial Greenland, Canada’s Arctic policies and China’s engagement with the Arctic. The book provides a rich knowledge base for researchers in Arctic social sciences and offers an absorbing textbook for students interested in Arctic issues.

This book describes life in a small hunting community in Northwest Greenland. It is based on fieldwork carried out by the author from 1966 to 1968 and documents in detail the traditional material culture, ways of hunting and fishing, daily life, and festive occasions of an Inuit society not yet influenced by European culture. The historical background of the settlement from the establishment in 1923 is outlined. Daily life in the settlement itself and out on the hunting grounds is followed through a whole year and all processes are documented in the many original photographs. The book demonstrates a surprising stability in the life of the hunting families, not due to conservatism but because experience has shown them that this way of living is the most suited to the given conditions. At the time of the field study, new tools and a number of other items had been introduced. In a large number of cases, they are used in conjunction with more traditional tools.

Once imagined as a place on the very edge of the world, Greenland is now viewed as being at the epicentre of climate change. At the same time, international attention is focused on opportunities for oil and mineral development, seemingly made possible as the inland ice melts and sea ice disappears, revealing geological riches and making access to remote areas easier. In this book, Mark Nuttall takes the reader on a journey through landscapes, seascapes and icescapes of memory, movement and anticipation. Unravelling the entanglements of climate change, indigenous sovereignty and the politics surrounding non-renewable resource extraction, he describes how the country is on the verge of major environmental, political and social transformations as it aspires to greater autonomy and possible independence from Denmark. At the heart of this is discussion about how resources and the environment are given meaning and how they have become subject to intense political and ideological struggle. Climate, Society and Subsurface Politics in Greenland: Under the Great Ice is a key resource for academics, practitioners and students of anthropology, geography, development studies, political ecology and polar studies.

The book examines ideas about the making and shaping of Greenland’s society, environment, and resource spaces. It discusses how Greenland’s resources have been extracted at different points in its history, shows how acquiring knowledge of subsurface environments has been crucial for matters of securitisation, and explores how the country is being imagined as an emerging frontier with vast mineral reserves. The book delves into the history and contemporary practice of geological exploration and considers the politics and corporate activities that frame discussion about extractive industries and resource zones. It touches upon resource policies, the nature of social and environmental assessments, and permitting processes, while the environmental and social effects of extractive industries are considered, alongside an assessment of the status of current and planned resource projects. In its exploration of the nature and place of territory and the subterranean in political and economic narratives, the book shows how the making of Greenland has and continues to be bound up with the shaping of resource spaces and with ambitions to extract resources from them. Yet the book shows that plans for extractive industries remain controversial. It concludes by considering the prospects for future development and debates on conservation and Indigenous rights, with reflections on how and where Greenland is positioned in the geopolitics of environmental governance and geo-security in the Arctic. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental anthropology, geography, resource management, extractive industries, environmental governance, international relations, geopolitics, Arctic studies, and sustainable development.

Comprehensively assessing anthropology's engagement with climate change, this volume both maps out exciting trajectories for research and issues a call to action. Linking sophisticated knowledge to effective actions, 'Anthropology and Climate Change' is essential for students and scholars in anthropology and environmental studies.

The Arctic has again become one of the leading issues on the international foreign policy agenda, in a manner unseen since the Cold War. Drawing on the perspectives of geo-politics and international law, this Handbook offers fresh insights and perspectives on the most pressing issues, grouped under the headings of political ascendancy, climate and environmental issues, resources and energy, and the response and policies of affected countries.

Negotiating Personal Autonomy offers a detailed ethnographic examination of personal autonomy and social life in East Greenland. Examining verbal and non-verbal communication in interpersonal encounters, Elixhauser argues that social life in the region is characterized by relationships based upon a particular care to respect other people’s personal autonomy. Exploring this high valuation of personal autonomy, she asserts that a person in East Greenland is a highly permeable entity that is neither bounded by the body nor even necessarily human. In so doing, she also puts forward a new approach to the anthropological study of communication. An important addition to the corpus of ethnographic literature about the people of East Greenland, Elixhauser‘s work will be of interest to scholars of the Arctic and the North, Greenland, social and cultural anthropology, and human geography. Her conclusion that, in East Greenland, the ‘inner’ self cannot be separated from the ‘public’ persona will also be of interest to scholars working on the self across the humanities and social sciences.

Ninety years ago, Knud Rasmussen’s popular account of his scientific expeditions through Greenland and North America introduced readers to the culture and history of arctic Natives. In the intervening century, a robust field of ethnographic research has grown around the Inuit and Yupiit of North America—but, until now, English-language readers have had little access to the broad corpus of work on Greenlandic natives. Worldviews of the Greenlanders draws upon extensive Danish and Greenlandic research on Inuit arctic peoples—as well as Birgitte Sonne’s own decades of scholarship and fieldwork—to present in rich detail the key symbols and traditional beliefs of Greenlandic Natives, as well as the changes brought about by contact with colonial traders and Christian missionaries. It includes critical updates to our knowledge of the Greenlanders’ pre-colonial world and their ideas on space, time, and other worldly beings. This expansive work will be a touchstone of Arctic Native studies for academics who wish to expand their knowledge past the boundaries of North America.