“Self-Image, World-Image: Speculations on Identity from Experiences with Inuit” |
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Abstract The notion of identity is becoming more relevant to individuals. Integrations between self-concepts and societal-concepts have emerged as person-culture constructs. Arlene Stairs in “Self-Image, World-Image: Speculations on Identity from Experiences with Inuit,” observes the concept of identity in Inuit culture. She begins her article by discussing the word inummarik, which means “a most genuine person.” Descriptions of those who label themselves inummarik are mobile, generous, and connected to their community. Their identity is progressive and not bound by rigid definitions of personhood. They believe in good and mad morals and define themselves as constantly embodying numerous traits. The author, using psychological sources, argues that the Self is a construct. In turn, she seeks to understand Inuit self constructs that are incongruent with Western concepts of the self. The former consists of active construction that relies on continual negotiation with structures of society. Therefore, Inuit identity construction is dependent on the community and environment that surrounds them. In order to accommodate this construction of self, Stairs creates an identity category that she labels ecocentric, “eco” meaning human, animal, and material. According to her term, Inuit identity is not only constructed through relationships to society but also to the environment. The active process of subsistence hunting bolsters the ecocentric metaphor. For the inummarik, the material world, animals, and human community coexist together. Conceptions of self cannot be created without these elements. The author asserts the concept of continual cycling through the aforementioned elements as vital to the Inuit ecocentric identity. Unfortunately, external government, social, and educational systems distort this cycle. Western institutions in Alaska have led to isolation and decontextualization of traditions. In turn, suicide and aggression have increased. The author reads this increase as symptoms of new social forces. The growing concept of individualism in Western institutions has divorced the Inuit from the very things that are vital to their identity—communion with, instead of isolation from, the environment, community, and animals. In the final section of the article, Stairs discusses the paradoxes and prospects inherent in incorrect models of Inuit identity. Many of these models include individualism as the central tenet. However, as Stairs elucidates, this is detrimental to the Inuit culture. For example, ecological concepts of identity have focused on autonomy within or domination over the environment. This model is not applicable to Inuit identity. Another identity model explores the concept of solitude that in Western society connotes psychological distress. However, an identity like that of the Inuit that is based in world-image (not self-image) does need incessant human contact. For the world-image, social contact is only one aspect of identity whereas the Western concept of self-image is only understood through continual sociality. Simply put, Inuit culture values solitude and the environment, whereas Western culture does not. Imposing these models on the Inuit, as Stairs reveals, is disadvantageous. In closing, Stairs reaffirms that Inuit identity is “progressive, continually maturing toward inummarik, a most genuine person.” Her exploration of identity outside Western models helps reveal the true nature of Inuit self-concepts.
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