Saviors, “sealfies,” and seals: strategies for self-representation in contemporary Inuit films

• Main Author: Athens, Allison K.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de Alcalá 2014
• Subjects: Animal Rights; Inuit; Inupiat; "Sealfie"; Self-representation; Food security; Derechos de los animales; Autorepresentación; Seguridad alimentaria; Literatura; Medio ambiente; Literature; Environmental science; Derecho; Foca; Focas; inuit
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10017/20862

The legibility of the inter-relationships between human and seal is what is at stake when Inuit present themselves within administrative discourses at international assemblies in defense of their ontology and the right to hunt seals. In the language of administration and in the narrative practices of international animal rights, seals can only appear in a predetermined categorical framework for what constitutes human ethical responsibility to nature. The seal in animal rights discourse is one type of object that needs saving in the form of protective measures to keep her safe from the rapacious greed of capitalism. However, in Indigenous cultural practices, the seal is another relative, a relation whose presence makes all certainties about hierarchies, use-value, moral exemptions, and human exceptionalism impossible. Using the trending social media phenomenon of the “sealfie” and three contemporary northern Indigenous films, this essay argues that the Inuit use of these media formats showcases their cultural and economic dependence on seal hunting and restructures debates around authority, self-representation , and one-sided environmental protection activities. El entendimiento de las interrelaciones entre ser humano y foca está en juego cuando los Inuit usan el lenguaje institucional en foros internacionales para defender su realidad y el derecho a cazar focas. En el lenguaje administrativo y en las prácticas discursivas de los derechos internacionales de los animales, las focas únicamente pueden aparecer como un marco categórico predeterminado de lo que constituye la responsabilidad ética del ser humano con la naturaleza. La foca en el lenguaje de los derechos de los animales es un objeto que necesita salvarse mediante medidas protectoras que las salvaguarden de la avaricia agresiva del capitalismo. Sin embargo, en las prácticas culturales indígenas la foca es percibida como un familiar, un pariente cuya presencia hace imposible nuestra certitud sobre jerarquías, el valor de uso, la impunidad moral, y la ...