Quaqtaq: Modernity and Identity in an Inuit Community - Softcover

Dorais, Louis-Jacques

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802079520 ISBN 13: 9780802079527

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1997

Synopsis

How, in a world that is drastically changing, can the Inuit preserve their identity? Louis-Jacques Dorais explores this question in Quaqtaq, the first ethnography of a contemporary Canadian Inuit community to be published in over twenty-five years.

The community of Quaqtaq is a small village on Hudson Strait where hunting and gathering are still the mainstays of life. In this description of Quaqtaq, based on data collected over a thirty-year period, we get a glimpse of its early cultural history, its development into a settled community, and its present realities. Dorais identifies three principal manifestations of local identity - kinship, religion, and language - that persist despite the brutal intrusion of modernity. He concludes by examining the role politics and education have played in the relationship between Quaqtaq and the outside world.

Quaqtaq is a unique and important study that will be of interest to scholars, administrators, and citizens of Inuit and other native communities.

About this title

About the Author

Louis-Jacques Dorais is Professor of Anthropology, Université Laval, and is editor of Études/Inuit/Studies.

From the Back Cover

'The virtue of this book lies in its approachability and its close reading of community relations ... The use of Inuit terms to label and discuss some elements of these processes is perhaps the book's most undersold strength.'

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802079520
• ISBN 13: 9780802079527
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160