Telling Our Selves Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska

by Hensel, Chase

• ISBN13: 9780195094770
• ISBN10: 0195094778
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-11-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In this book, Chase Hensel examines how Yup'ik Eskimos and non-natives construct and maintain gender and ethnic identities through strategic talk about hunting, fishing, and processing. Although ethnicity is overtly constructed in terms of either/or categories, the discourse of Bethel residents suggests that their actual concern is less with whether one is native or non-native, than with how native one is in a given context. In the interweaving of subsistence practices and subsistence discourse, ethnicity is constantly recreated.

Author Biography

Chase Hensel was a Visiting Scholar at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, and teaches anthropology and education at the University of Fairbanks. He lived in Bethel, Alaska for eleven years, where, as a participant in Bethel's subsistence practices and subsistence discourse, he studied issues of language, education, and ethnicity in the region

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 3
Overview	p. 3
Why Bethel?	p. 6
Subsistence and Discourse	p. 7
Subsistence as an Economic Activity?	p. 7
Deconstructing the Economic Analysis of Subsistence	p. 12
Negotiated Gender and Ethnicity	p. 14
Mutual Influences	p. 15
Fieldwork	p. 16
Ethnographic Background and Post-Contact History of the Area	p. 19
Jigging for Pike	p. 19
Introduction	p. 21
Geology and Topography of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta	p. 21
Wildlife	p. 22
Local Villages	p. 23
Bethel	p. 26
Subsistence: Past, Present, and Future	p. 31
Traditional Housing and Gender Roles	p. 34
Traditional Yup'ik Beliefs	p. 40
Early Twentieth-Century Seasonal Rounds	p. 42
Contemporary Practices and Ideologies	p. 47
Drift Netting for King Salmon	p. 47
Introduction	p. 49
Changes in Migration Patterns and Resource Use	p. 52
Changing Technologies and Techniques of Subsistence	p. 53
Changes in Preservation Techniques and Utilization	p. 55
Trade, Contact, and Changing Local Diets	p. 56
Contemporary Seasonal Rounds in Lower Kuskokwim Villages	p. 57
Subsistence Calendar	p. 58
Contemporary Yup'ik Gender and Family Roles and Subsistence	p. 59
Subsistence As An Integrated Activity	p. 64
Subsistence Practices in Bethel	p. 69
Contemporary Yup'ik Ideologies About Hunting and Fishing	p. 70
Non-Native Ideologies About Hunting and Fishing	p. 72
Fish and Game Stocks to Support Future Subsistence in Bethel	p. 75
Regulating Subsistence	p. 76
Subsistence, Identity, and Meaning	p. 81
Cutting Salmon for Drying and Smoking	p. 81
Introduction	p. 82
Creating and Maintaining Identity	p. 84
Boundaries and Boundary Marking	p. 87
Boundaries, Stereotypes, and Practice	p. 91
Stereotypes of Inuit: Historical and Contemporary Views	p. 94
Non-Native Envy of Subsistence Skills and Subsistence as an Identity Marker	p. 96
Yup'ik Practice as It Affects Non-Native Practice	p. 97
Subsistence as an Identity Marker	p. 103
Picking Blueberries	p. 103
Subsistence as a Marker for a Yup'ik Identity	p. 104
Subsistence as a Marker for a Non-Native Rural Alaskan Identity	p. 106
Talk of Practice for Yupiit and Non-Natives	p. 107
Specific Subsistence Practices as Markers of Identity	p. 109
Development and the Marking of Gender and Ethnicity	p. 113
My First Memorable Steambath	p. 113
Introduction	p. 115
Nondifferential Effects of Cultural Change	p. 115
History of Wage Labor	p. 116
The Gendered Construction of Work	p. 119
Changes in Yup'ik Gender Spaces	p. 123
The Steambath as an Institution	p. 123
Changes in Gender Relations and Power	p. 126
Outmarriage Reexamined	p. 133
The Continuing Symbolic Importance of Subsistence	p. 134
Gender Differences, Discourse Similarities	p. 137
Yup'ik Gourmands: Food and Ethnicity	p. 139
Setting a Winter Net Under the Ice for Whitefish	p. 139
Checking the Net	p. 141
Eating for Pleasure Versus Eating to Survive	p. 142
Yup'ik "Cooking"	p. 146
Changing Attitudes and Diets	p. 149
Food as an Identity Marker	p. 149
Subsistence Discourse as Practice	p. 153
Ptarmigan Hunting by Snow Machine	p. 153
Introduction	p. 154
Practice/Structuration Theory	p. 154
Family Systems Theory	p. 157
Contextualization Conventions and Sociolinguistics	p. 159
Summary of Strategic Moves in Example 4	p. 172
Subsistence Discourse as Practice	p. 178
Native, Non-Native, How Native? Ethnicity on a Continuum of Practice	p. 179
Conclusion	p. 187
Notes	p. 191
References	p. 203
Index	p. 214
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