Words of the Inuit


Book Description

"Words of the Inuit" is an important compendium of Inuit culture illustrated through Inuit words. It brings the sum of the author’s decades of experience and engagement with Inuit and Inuktitut to bear on what he fashions as an amiable, leisurely stroll through words and meanings. Inuit words are often more complex than English words and frequently contain small units of meaning that add up to convey a larger sensibility. Dorais’ lexical and semantic analyses and reconstructions are not overly technical, yet they reliably evince connections and underlying significations that allow for an in-depth reflection on the richness of Inuit linguistic and cultural heritage and identity. An appendix on the polysynthetic character of Inuit languages includes more detailed grammatical description of interest to more specialist readers. Organized thematically, the book tours the histories and meanings of the words to illuminate numerous aspects of Inuit culture, including environment and the land; animals and subsistence activities; humans and spirits; family, kinship, and naming; the human body; and socializing with other people in the contemporary world. It concludes with a reflection on the usefulness for modern Inuit—especially youth and others looking to strengthen their cultural identity —to know about the underlying meanings embedded in their language and culture. With recent reports alerting us to the declining use of the Inuit language in the North, "Words of the Inuit" is a timely contribution to understanding one of the world’s most resilient Indigenous languages.




The Inuit World


Book Description

The Inuit World is a robust and holistic reference source to contemporary Inuit life from the intimate world of the household to the global stage. Organized around the themes of physical worlds, moral, spiritual and intellectual worlds, intimate and everyday worlds, and social and political worlds, this book includes ethnographically rich contributions from a range of scholars, including Inuit and other Indigenous authors. The book considers regional, social, and cultural differences as well as the shared histories and common cultural practices that allow us to recognize Inuit as a single, distinct Indigenous people. The chapters demonstrate both the historical continuity of Inuit culture and the dynamic ways that Inuit people have responded to changing social, environmental, political, and economic conditions. Chapter topics include ancestral landscapes, tourism and archaeology, resource extraction and climate change, environmental activism, and women’s leadership. This book is an invaluable resource for students and researchers in anthropology, Indigenous studies, and Arctic studies and those in related fields including geography, history, sociology, political science, and education.




Inuit Kinship and Naming Customs


Book Description

A collection of interviews with Inuit elders from Arviat, Nunavut, about traditional family naming and kinship customs.




The Return of the Sun


Book Description

Inuit have among the highest suicide rates in the world - ten times the national average. Inuit narratives of suicide provide clues as to what can and in some cases has been done to combat the problem, but until recently they have not circulated far beyond Inuit communities themselves. At the same time, academic researchers have studied suicide among Indigenous peoples, but have stopped short of analyzing narrative accounts for their themes of cultural survival. Based on two decades of participatory action and ethnographic research, The Return of the Sun is a historical and anthropological examination of suicide among Inuit youth in Arctic Canada. Conceptualizing suicide among Inuit as a response to colonial disruption of family and interpersonal relationships and examining how the community has addressed the issue, Kral draws on research from psychology, anthropology, Indigenous studies, and social justice to understand and address this population. Central to the book are narrative accounts by Inuit of their experiences and perceptions of suicide, and the lives of youth and their community action for change. As these Indigenous community success stories have not previously been widely retold, The Return of the Sun gives voice to a historically ignored community. Kral also locates this community action within the larger Inuit movement toward self-determination and self-governance. This important volume will be of interest to a broad range of social scientists, as well as researchers and practitioners in the mental health fields.




Words of the Inuit


Book Description

"Words of the Inuit" is an important compendium of Inuit culture illustrated through Inuit words. It brings the sum of the author’s decades of experience and engagement with Inuit and Inuktitut to bear on what he fashions as an amiable, leisurely stroll through words and meanings. Inuit words are often more complex than English words and frequently contain small units of meaning that add up to convey a larger sensibility. Dorais’ lexical and semantic analyses and reconstructions are not overly technical, yet they reliably evince connections and underlying significations that allow for an in-depth reflection on the richness of Inuit linguistic and cultural heritage and identity. An appendix on the polysynthetic character of Inuit languages includes more detailed grammatical description of interest to more specialist readers. Organized thematically, the book tours the histories and meanings of the words to illuminate numerous aspects of Inuit culture, including environment and the land; animals and subsistence activities; humans and spirits; family, kinship, and naming; the human body; and socializing with other people in the contemporary world. It concludes with a reflection on the usefulness for modern Inuit—especially youth and others looking to strengthen their cultural identity —to know about the underlying meanings embedded in their language and culture. With recent reports alerting us to the declining use of the Inuit language in the North, "Words of the Inuit" is a timely contribution to understanding one of the world’s most resilient Indigenous languages.




Traditions, Traps and Trends


Book Description

The transfer of knowledge is a key issue in the North as Indigenous Peoples meet the ongoing need to adapt to cultural and environmental change. In eight essays, experts survey critical issues surrounding the knowledge practices of the Inuit of northern Canada and Greenland and the Northern Sámi of Scandinavia, and the difficulties of transferring that knowledge from one generation to the next. Reflecting the ongoing work of the Research Group Circumpolar Cultures, these multidisciplinary essays offer fresh understandings through history and across geography as scholars analyze cultural, ecological, and political aspects of peoples in transition. Traditions, Traps and Trends is an important book for students and scholars in anthropology and ethnography and for everyone interested in the Circumpolar North. Contributors: Cunera Buijs, Frédéric Laugrand, Barbara Helen Miller, Thea Olsthoorn, Jarich Oosten, Willem Rasing, Kim van Dam, Nellejet Zorgdrager




In Order to Live Untroubled


Book Description

Despite the long human history of the Canadian central arctic, there is still little historical writing on the Inuit peoples of this vast region. Although archaeologists and anthropologists have studied ancient and contemporary Inuit societies, the Inuit world in the crucial period from the 16th to the 20th centuries remains largely undescribed and unexplained. In Order to Live Untroubled helps fill this 400-year gap by providing the first, broad, historical survey of the Inuit peoples of the central arctic.Drawing on a wide array of eyewitness accounts, journals, oral sources, and findings from material culture and other disciplines, historian Renee Fossett explains how different Inuit societies developed strategies and adaptations for survival to deal with the challenges of their physical and social environments over the centuries. In Order to Live Untroubled examines how and why Inuit created their cultural institutions before they came under the pervasive influence of Euro-Canadian society. This fascinating account of Inuit encounters with explorers, fur traders, and other Aboriginal peoples is a rich and detailed glimpse into a long-hidden historical world.




Inuit Laws


Book Description

An insightful introduction into the production and transmission of knowledge in Inuit societies through the voices of Inuit elders. This rare book grew out of the Oral Traditions course, held at the Iqaluit campus of Nunavut Arctic College. The college invited Inuit elders to be interviewed, in Inuktitut, by the students taking the course that year. The interviews began across a table, but just weeks into what became an ongoing project, the stories and songs you will find captured here were being told over a cup of tea to students and course facilitators sitting on the floor, as they might have been centuries ago. Inuit Worldviews effectively introduces the reader to the production and transmission of knowledge in Inuit society and describes the nature of Inuit knowledge. It includes essays by the students, traditional stories, and an instructive glossary.




Faces of the North


Book Description

A photographic account of John J. Honigmanns anthropological endeavours among northern First Nations from the 1940s to the 1960s.




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