@article{oai:minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004164,
 author = {岸上, 伸啓 and Kishigami, Nobuhiro},
 issue = {4},
 journal = {国立民族学博物館研究報告, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology},
 month = {Mar},
 note = {Before the 1960s, subsistence among the Canadian Inuit involved
foraging, food sharing and social relationships which provided an
organizational framework for these activities [WENzEL 1991]. Foraging
activities were organized according to extended family and co-habitation
relationships, and the products of these activities were shared and
consumed according to the same relationships. The various aspects of
subsistence activity were causally dependent upon each other.
It is a fact that the arctic fur trade, and subsequently a larger cash
economy, did not necessarily harm the Inuit socioeconomic system and
could co-exist with it. Cash has helped the Inuit continue their foraging
activities until the present. The Inuit have purchased snowmobiles,
boats with outboard engines, rifles and ammunition, nets, gasoline, and
so on, using money earned in the fur trade, government subsidies and
wage labor. The adoption of new technology helped them to maintain
traditional forms of food sharing and consumption, and distinctive
social relationships.
When the European Community banned the import of skins of seals
and arctic foxes in 1983, the fur market ceased abruptly. The Canadian
Inuit suddenly lost one of thier main income sources and started experiencing
some difficulty in finding enough money for hunting and fishing
activities.
In this paper I propose that the decline in hunting and fishing activities
will lead to a deterioration of food sharing and consumption practices
and a breakdown of social relationships among the Inuit. I examined
this proposition by visiting Inukjuak village, Nunavik, Canada, in
January and February of 1996. The findings were as follows.
1. The number of Inuit hunters and fishermen has decreased, while
that of those who hope to be wage laborers has increased during the last
30 years. There has been a clear decline in the subsistence economic sector.
However, food sharing and consumption activities and social relationships
were not yet drastically altered. Food sharing has helped to
maintain and promote integration within extended families and within
the whole village, and still contributes much to Inuit identity. This has
been possible because of three kinds of food sharing: (1) food sharing
by a hunter support program established in 1982, (2) use of local FM
radio to broadcast food requests to the entire village and (3) food sharing
within each extended family. The current hunter support program
in Nunavik has its own limitations and problems, but has made a great
contribution to social relationships in Inukjuak village.
2. The hunter support program has been being implemented among
the Nunavik Inuit by the provincial government of Quebec and by the
Kativik regional government. Recently, the Makivik Corporation, a
native economico-political organization formed by the Nunavik Inuit,
has planned a commercial project for the purchase and distribution of
country foods such as caribou and seal meat. The purpose of Makivik is
to improve the economy and health conditions of Nunavik Inuit by purchasing
country foods from Inuit harvesters and selling them at low
prices to Inuit wage laborers and the retired. However, I argue that the
project will not function properly unless two conditions are met: (1)
clear occupational differentiation into categories such as
hunters/fishermen and wage laborers within Inuit society, and (2) promotion
of economic stability among the wage laborers. If Makivik
starts the project, there is a high probability that social relationships will
be transformed by a decline in traditional food sharing practices.
3. Murphy and Steward (1956) suggested that native subsistence
culture might decline in the future under the influence of the cash
economy if there is no deliberate counter-effort by the people. I argue
that the Inuit must control their own economy with political agreement
between them and the state and provincial governments to maintain and
promote their own subsistence culture within the Canadian nation
state. In the mid-1990s, two economic development projects began
operation within Nunavik Inuit society: the hunter support program and
the Nunavik Arctic Food Project. These projects will have conflicting
socio-economic effects on the Inuit. I propose that the Inuit themselves
should choose only one of the two projects for the present, or resolve the
various conflicts between the two projects in order to achieve better
socio-economic results for Inuit society.
4. Contrary to my expectations, food sharing and indigenous social
relationships have not been drastically altered among the Inukjuak Inuit.
The following revised hypothesis is offered. Indigenous minorities
living within a large nation state or federation such as Canada increasingly
become dependent on the state and national economy in socioeconomic
terms under prevailing influences of implementing a series of
socio-economic policies toward the peoples by the economic-political majority
of the state. However, these impacts on the peoples will not
necessarily result in extinguishing or weakening their distinctive social
relationships and ethnic identities. When positive national policies
toward the indigenous peoples and positive indigenous initiatives (e.g.
economic and political practices) coincide, economic activities will continue
to be socially constituted. Under the above-mentioned condition,
distinctive socio-economic relationships of the peoples can be reproduced
in spite of undergoing some socio-economic changes.},
 pages = {715--775},
 title = {カナダ･イヌイットの社会･経済変化 : ケベック州のイヌクジュアク村の事例を中心に},
 volume = {21},
 year = {1997},
 yomi = {キシガミ, ノブヒロ}
}