Ambiguous beings: the ontological autonomy of Inuit dogs

Summary

Part of the attraction of relational ontology is its encouragement to discard conventional epistemological hierarchies. We needn’t frame our investigations with the usual weighty themes – economy, social relations, ideology – but can begin anywhere, with any sort of question, and tug on the thread until the archaeological fabric unravels. Here I begin with dogs, and their relations with humans and other animals in the Inuit past. Inuit had an exceptionally complex relationship with the dogs that shared their houses, pulled their sleds, helped them hunt, provided fur (and occasionally food), and generally occupied an ambiguous space between Inuit, non-Inuit humans, and other animals in Inuit belief systems. As beings that in part elected to live closely with humans (they often roamed free in villages) but were also entrapped by them (they exhibit repetitive patterns of stress and trauma due to work and human violence), and that enjoyed equally complex relations with the wild canids that killed them and reproduced with them, dogs represent an interesting opportunity to think about the ontological autonomy of non-human creatures.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Dynamic Worlds, Shifting Paradigms: Relational Ontologies in Archaeology

Keywords

Temporal Coverage

Calendar Date: 1200 to 1950

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Peter Whitridge

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