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(s): Chase Hensel
Series: Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 5
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1996
Language: English
Pages: 232
Contents......Page 10
Overview......Page 16
Why Bethel?......Page 19
Subsistence as an Economic Activity?......Page 20
Deconstructing the Economic Analysis of Subsistence......Page 25
Negotiated Gender and Ethnicity......Page 27
Mutual Influences......Page 28
Fieldwork......Page 29
Jigging for Pike......Page 32
Geology and Topography of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta......Page 34
Wildlife......Page 35
Local Villages......Page 36
Bethel......Page 39
Subsistence: Past, Present, and Future......Page 44
Traditional Housing and Gender Roles......Page 47
Traditional Yup'ik Beliefs......Page 53
Early Twentieth-Century Seasonal Rounds......Page 55
Drift Netting for King Salmon......Page 60
Introduction......Page 62
Changes in Migration Patterns and Resource Use......Page 65
Changing Technologies and Techniques of Subsistence......Page 66
Changes in Preservation Techniques and Utilization......Page 68
Trade, Contact, and Changing Local Diets......Page 69
Contemporary Seasonal Rounds in Lower Kuskokwim Villages......Page 70
Subsistence Calendar......Page 71
Contemporary Yup'ik Gender and Family Roles and Subsistence......Page 74
Subsistence As An Integrated Activity......Page 77
Subsistence Practices in Bethel......Page 82
Contemporary Yup'ik Ideologies About Hunting and Fishing......Page 83
Non-Native Ideologies About Hunting and Fishing......Page 85
Fish and Game Stocks to Support Future Subsistence in Bethel......Page 88
Regulating Subsistence......Page 89
Cutting Salmon for Drying and Smoking......Page 94
Introduction......Page 95
Creating and Maintaining Identity......Page 97
Boundaries and Boundary Marking......Page 100
Boundaries, Stereotypes, and Practice......Page 104
Stereotypes of Inuit: Historical and Contemporary Views......Page 107
Non-Native Envy of Subsistence Skills and Subsistence as an Identity Marker......Page 109
Yup'ik Practice as It Affects Non-Native Practice......Page 110
Picking Blueberries......Page 116
Subsistence as a Marker for a Yup'ik Identity......Page 117
Subsistence as a Marker for a Non-Native Rural Alaskan Identity......Page 119
Talk of Practice for Yupiit and Non-Natives......Page 120
Specific Subsistence Practices as Markers of Identity......Page 122
My First Memorable Steambath......Page 126
Nondifferential Effects of Cultural Change......Page 128
History of Wage Labor......Page 129
The Gendered Construction of Work......Page 132
The Steambath as an Institution......Page 136
Changes in Gender Relations and Power......Page 139
Outmarriage Reexamined......Page 146
The Continuing Symbolic Importance of Subsistence......Page 147
Gender Differences, Discourse Similarities......Page 150
Setting a Winter Net Under the Ice for Whitefish......Page 152
Checking the Net......Page 154
Eating for Pleasure Versus Eating to Survive......Page 155
Yup'ik "Cooking"......Page 159
Food as an Identity Marker......Page 162
Ptarmigan Hunting by Snow Machine......Page 166
Practice/Structuration Theory......Page 167
Family Systems Theory......Page 170
Contextualization Conventions and Sociolinguistics......Page 172
Summary of Strategic Moves in Example 4......Page 185
Subsistence Discourse as Practice......Page 191
Native, Non-Native, How Native? Ethnicity on a Continuum of Practice......Page 192
Conclusion......Page 200
Notes......Page 204
References......Page 216
B......Page 227
D......Page 228
H......Page 229
L......Page 230
S......Page 231
Z......Page 233
