The making of kinship : choosing kin, practicing relationships, and producing kinship symbols among the Inuit of the Belcher Islands (Nunavut, Arctic Canada)

• Main Author: Dupré, Florence
• Other Authors: Lyon 2, Université Laval (Québec, Canada), Déchaux, Jean-Hugues, Laugrand, Frédéric
• Format: Thesis
• Language: French
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Inuit; Îles Belcher; Anthropologie de la parenté; Élection parentale; Pratique relationnelle; Généalogie; Ontologie; Internet; Photographie; Tatouage; Belcher Islands; Kinship anthropology; Parental election; Relational pratice; Genealogy; Ontology; Photographs; Tattooing; anthro-se; scipo; Arctic; Belcher; Canada; Nunavut; Sanikiluaq; Arctique*; inuit
• Online Access: http://www.theses.fr/2014LYO20020

This doctoral dissertation is a contribution to the study of Inuit kinship. It presents an ethnography and analysis of contemporary kinship practices in the Arctic village of Sanikiluaq (Nunavut). The specific aim is to understand how kinship ties are produced, practised, and severed in a community that historically and socially has much in common with other Canadian Inuit societies of the early 21st century. The text thus covers the history of the Belcher Islands, the strategies currently used to establish kinship ties, and the kin identities of the people involved. The aim, here, is to understand the meaning of Inuit kinship without having to fall back on the flexibility of social organization to provide a satisfactory answer.After describing the historical backdrop to the recent formation of the village of Sanikiluaq, the first part (chapters 2 and 3) retraces the development of kinship practices during the 20th century and identifies the main strategies behind present-day kinship choices, e.g., choosing a mate, a godmother, a godfather, or a namesake for a newborn child. The second part (chapters 4 and 5) provides an ethnography and analysis of kinship choices in nine groups of siblings who are contemporary Qikirtamiut (i.e., Inuit of the Belcher Islands). It addresses how kinship strategies, production of kinship ties, and the actual kinship experience interrelate in terms of three factors that structure the practices and cultural theories under discussion: genealogy, identity, and daily life. The third and last part (chapters 6 and 7) pursues this analysis in places and settings where images of oneself and one’s kin group are used as means to produce, convey, and practise kinship. Topics include kinship practices on social networking websites, use of family photos, and several categories of tagging, which range from tattooing to drawing, that help people to identify themselves to others via the ontological identity that underlies their kinship ties. In sum, this dissertation describes Inuit kinship by ...