Circumpolar Lives and Livelihood

by Jarvenpa, Robert; Brumbach, Hetty Jo

• ISBN13: 9780803220782
• ISBN10: 0803220782
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Circumpolar Lives and Livelihoodis a cross-cultural ethnoarchaeological study of the gendered nature of subsistence in northern hunter-gatherer-fisher societies. Based on field studies of four circumpolar societies, it documents the complexities of women's and men's involvement in food procurement, processing, and storage, and the relationship of such behaviors to the built landscape. Avoiding simplistic stereotypes of male and female roles, the framework of "gendered landscapes" reveals the variability and flexibility of women's and men's actual lives in a manner useful for archaeological interpretations of hunter-foragers.Innovative in scope and design, this is the first study to employ a controlled, four-way, cross-cultural comparison of gender and subsistence. Members of an international team of anthropologists experienced in northern scholarship apply the same task-differentiation methodology in studies of Chipewyan hunter-fishers of Canada, Khanty hunter-fisher-herders of Western Siberia, Sami intensive reindeer herders of northwestern Finland, and Inupiaq maritime hunters of the Bering Strait of Alaska. This database on gender and subsistence is used to reassess one of the bedrock concepts in anthropology and social science: the sexual division of labor.

Author Biography

Robert Jarvenpa is a professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany. His books include Northern Passage: Ethnography and Apprenticeship among the Subarctic Dene. Hetty Jo Brumbach is an associate curator of anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany. She is the author of many reports and articles, which have appeared in such journals as Arctic Anthropology, Man in the Northeast, American Antiquity, and Human Ecology.

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Maps

List of Figures

Preface

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Gender, Subsistence and Ethnoarchaeology

Chipewyan Society and Gender Relations

Chipewyan Hunters: A Task Differentiation Analysis

Khanty Society and Gender Relations

Khanty Hunter-Fisher-Herders: A Task Differentiation Analysis of Trom'Agan Women's and Men's Subsistence Activities

Sami Society and Gender Relations

Sami Reindeer Breeders: A Task Differentiation Analysis

Intilde;upiaq Society and Gender Relations

Intilde;upiaq Maritime Hunters: Subsistence Work in

Conclusion: Toward a Comparative Ethnoarchaeology of

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