| Summary: | Degree: Master of Arts Abstract: The government of Canada initiated, implemented, and officially maintained the ‘Eskimo Identification Canada’ system from 1941-1971. With the exception of the Labrador Inuit, who formed the Labrador Treaty of 1765 in what is now called, NunatuKavat, all other Canadian Inuit peoples were issued a leather-like necklace with a numbered fibre-cloth disk. These stringed identifiers attempted to replace Inuit names, tradition, individuality, and indigenous distinctiveness. This was the Canadian governments’ attempt to exert a form of state surveillance and its official authority, over its own Inuit citizenry. The Eskimo Identification Canada system, E-number, or disk system eventually became entrenched within Inuit society, and in time it became a form of identification amongst the Inuit themselves. What has never been examined by an Inuk researcher, or student is the long-lasting affect these numbered disks had upon the Inuit, and the continued impact into present-day, of this type of state-operated system. The Inuit voice has not been heard or examined. This research focuses exclusively on the disk system itself and brings forward the voices of four disk system survivors, giving voice to those who have been silenced for far too long.
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