Telling Our Selves Ethnicity and Discourse in

In this book, Chase Hensel examines how Yup'ik Eskimos and non-natives construct and maintain gender and ethnic identities through strategic talk about hunting, fishing, and processing. Although ethnicity is overtly constructed in terms of either/or categories, the discourse of Bethel residents suggests that their actual concern is less with whether one is native or non-native, than with how native one is in a given context. In the interweaving of subsistence practices and subsistence discourse, ethnicity is constantly recreated.

Chase Hensel was a Visiting Scholar at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, and teaches anthropology and education at the University of Fairbanks. He lived in Bethel, Alaska for eleven years, where, as a participant in Bethel's subsistence practices and subsistence discourse, he studied issues of language, education, and ethnicity in the region

Introduction

3

(1)

Overview

3

(3)

Why Bethel?

6

(1)

Subsistence and Discourse

7

(1)

Subsistence as an Economic Activity?

7

(5)

Deconstructing the Economic Analysis of Subsistence

12

(2)

Negotiated Gender and Ethnicity

14

(1)

Mutual Influences

15

(1)

Fieldwork

16

(3)

CHAPTER 1: Ethnographic Background and Post-Contact History of the Area

19

(28)

Jigging for Pike

19

(2)

Introduction

21

(1)

Geology and Topography of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta

21

(1)

Wildlife

22

(1)

Local Villages

23

(3)

Bethel

26

(5)

Susistence: Past, Present, and Future

31

(3)

Traditional Housing and Gender Roles

34

(6)

Traditional Yup'ik Beliefs

40

(2)

Early Twentieth-Century Seasonal Rounds

42

(5)

CHAPTER 2: Contemporary Practices and Ideologies

47

(34)

Drift Netting for King Salmon

47

(2)

Introduction

49

(3)

Changes in Migration Patterns and Resource Use

52

(1)

Changing Technologies and Techniques of Subsistence

53

(2)

Changes in Preservation Techniques and Utilization

55

(1)

Trade, Contact, and Changing Local Diets

56

(1)

Contemporary Seasonal Rounds in Lower Kuskokwim Villages

57

(1)

Subsistence Calendar

58

(1)

Contemporary Yup'ik Gender and Family Roles and Subsistence

59

(5)

Subsistence As An Integrated Activity

64

(5)

Subsistence Practices in Bethel

69

(1)

Contemporary Yup'ik Ideologies About Hunting and Fishing

70

(2)

Non-Native Ideologies About Hunting and Fishing

72

(3)

Fish and Game Stocks to Support Future Subsistence in Bethel

75

(1)

Regulating Subsistence

76

(5)

CHAPTER 3: Subsistence, Identity, and Meaning

81

(22)

Cutting Salmon for Drying and Smoking

81

(1)

Introduction

82

(2)

Creating and Maintaining Identity

84

(3)

Boundaries and Boundary Marking

87

(4)

Boundaries, Stereotypes, and Practice

91

(3)

Stereotypes of Inuit: Historical and Contemporary Views

94

(2)

Non-Native Envy of Subsistence Skills and Subsistence as an Identity Marker

96

(1)

Yup'ik Practice as It Affects Non-Native Practice

97

(6)

CHAPTER 4: Subsistence as an Identity Marker

103

(10)

Picking Blueberries

103

(1)

Subsistence as a Marker for a Yup'ik Identity

104

(2)

Subsistence as a Marker for a Non--Native Rural Alaskan Identity

106

(1)

Talk of Practice for Yupiit and Non-Natives

107

(2)

Specific Subsistence Practices as Markets of Identity

109

(4)

CHAPTER 5: Development and the Marking of Gender and Ethnicity

113

(26)

My First Memorable Steambath

113

(2)

Introduction

115

(1)

Nondifferential Effects of Cultural Change

115

(1)

History of Wage Labor

116

(3)

The Gendered Construction of Work

119

(4)

Changes in Yup'ik Gender Spaces

123

(1)

The Steambath as an Institution

123

(3)

Changes in Gender Relations and Power

126

(7)

Outmarriage Reexamined

133

(1)

The Continuing Symbolic Importance of Subsistence

134

(3)

Gender Differences, Discourse Similarities

137

(2)

CHAPTER 6: Yup'ik Gourmands: Food and Ethnicity

139

(14)

Setting a Winter Net Under the Ice for Whitefish

139

(2)

Checking the Net

141

(1)

Eating for Pleasure Versus Eating to Survive

142

(4)

Yup'ik "Cooking"

146

(3)

Changing Attitudes and Diets

149

(1)

Food as an Identity Marker

149

(4)

CHAPTER 7: Subsistence Discourse as Practice

153

(34)

Ptarmigan Hunting by Snow Machine

153

(1)

Introduction

154

(1)

Practice/Structuration Theory

154

(3)

Family Systems Theory

157

(2)

Contextualization Conventions and Sociolinguistics

159

(13)

Summary of Strategic Moves in Example 4

172

(6)

Subsistence Discourse as Practice

178

(1)

Native, Non-Native, How Native? Ethnicity on a Continuum of Practice

179

(8)

Conclusion

187

(4)

Notes

191

(12)

References

203

(11)

Index

214

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Telling Our Selves Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials