High Arctic Resettlement. How 'Never In Anger' shed lights on Inuit's challenges after Canadian government's relocation

Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Pedagogy - Theory of Science, Anthropology, grade: 2:1, London School of Economics, language: English, abstract: During the Cold War in the 1950s, the Inuit people were relocated by the Canadian government in the High Arctic part of the country in order to overcome the issue of overpopulated areas and poor hunting, to reduce their high dependence on welfare. Despite the lowered rate in illiteracy as Inuit children and adults were put to schools, there had been an importantly rising concern within the Inuit community of high suicides rates. In this essay, I discuss how Briggs's ethnography of life in a nomadic Inuit camp can explain the reasons behind the challenges that Eskimo people had to face and why young Eskimo people increasingly committed suicide. Primarily, I define previous and recent definition of suicides for the Inuit and explain the differences between these two concepts using a piece of evidence of an old Eskimo lady in an ethnographic film and Durkheim s own definition of egoistic suicide . Secondly, I draw a discussion about how Briggs s ethnographic work can be relevant when it comes to explain about the social detachment within Eskimo families once they are separated in terms of cross-generational teaching and mentoring, which have been dramatically altered due to government s schools and new jobs in society other than hunting. Next, I introduce two complimentary features ungayuq and naalaqtuq - in Inuit social relationships, which play important parts as they create a distinctive closeness among members in society. I also argue Briggs s work can assist the understanding of these two concepts, which reflected the difference in Eskimo people s mentality between the past and the days after the resettlement. Before the conclusion, I give my arguments regarding other unexplored causes of suicides, which are irrelevant if using Briggs s research to explain.