Transforming Communities: Suicide, Relatedness, and Reclamation among Inuit of Nunavut
2 This thesis is the story of how forms of relatedness in social organization and kinship changed among Inuit after the Canadian government assumed control of their lives. Respect and affection are identified as attributes through which to understand important contexts of relationship among Inuit. K...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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2009
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.459.1978 http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol1/QMM/TC-QMM-40705.pdf |
| Summary: | 2 This thesis is the story of how forms of relatedness in social organization and kinship changed among Inuit after the Canadian government assumed control of their lives. Respect and affection are identified as attributes through which to understand important contexts of relationship among Inuit. Kin and other relations are reviewed before major contact with the Western world, followed by a close look at the dynamics of relational and social change in a number of contexts during the government era after the 1950s. These shifts are readily identifiable in Inuit youth suicide, which as one form of social perturbation can be viewed as a postcolonial disorder. Inuit in Nunavut under the age of 24 have a suicide rate ten times the rate of Canada. This thesis examines the lives of Inuit male youth, and analyzes the relationships – particularly sexual and familial – in which suicidality becomes manifest. The thesis then shifts to the recent efforts by youth to stop the suicides. The activities of youth in this regard represent a reclaiming of collective agency at the community level. The youth implemented programs that, with community |
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