fogel chance

Fogel-Chance, Nancy 1993. “Living in Both Worlds: Modernity and Tradition among North Slope Iñupiaq Women in Anchorage.” Arctic Anthropology,30 (1) :94-108.

The author points how the modernizing model in North Alaska fails to consider the first nations, in particular in the face of the development of oil exploitation of the region.. She points to the Inupiat cultural recreation in the city, which is a location expected to generate cultural loss. Inupiat positioning in regard to modernization is even more challenging than either “traditionalist” or “modernizing” claims, as they claim to be “living in both worlds”, in which a careful selection of what is more suitable form each social formation (the more “traditional” rural communities and the cities). To leave in both worlds entails to be in-between two cultures, and challenge the limits of both. The author focuses on a gender dimension of Inupiat in the city, as women are both the focus of policies aiming to transform the Inupiat (and trying to impose a western femininity over the women) and are central actors in the cultural recreation. Inupiat women in Anchorage are not marginal, rather they are mostly employed and have fulfilled their expectations of having better conditions of living that in the communities. The women’s economic position in the city is then not a field of tensions, however the social incorporating offers some challenges. The women’s migration was caused by: 1) a family member’s migration, 2) lack of employment in rural communities, 3) to accept a work or higher education offer. Indirectly the oil agreement generated labour for indigenous in the city, many of which were taken by women, who have more “freedom” that in the communities. Men tend to have a more mobile pattern of going to the city for seasonal work and then returning for the hunting season. In spite of employment some women supplement work with craft production. Women are central actors in the generation of kin and friendship networks in the city, and some cultural practices likewise are central for women’s assimilation to the city. Parental styles are one f the points of friction, as women’s cooperative parenting was regarded by institutions as abandonment. Inupiat households generally include more member than the nuclear family, and they generally host family members visiting the city. Networks or reciprocity are also active in the city, and do not present challenges to economic upward mobility as in other contexts. This networks are active for the distribution of good but function as well as means of communication. Given frequent is expensive each trip of someone form the communities to the city is taken as a chance to transmit messages, and carry goods. Travel is thus a means of community / city redistribution in which relatives but also friends and other community members are included. Networks are built extensive enough so as not to put too much pressure over one person and at the same time cover a variety of roles. Living in both worlds then menas to be in between “tradition / modernity” and the “ rural / urban” but it also means for the women to are lobbiests of the indigenous matters, while in the city and that they may return to rural communities. Movement in between the country and the city is in part a continuity of seasonal variations of resources, but now subsistence activities have changed and offer a complex variety of options.