Back to results
Cover image for book Quaqtaq

Quaqtaq

Modernity and Identity in an Inuit Community
By:Louis-Jacques Dorais
Publisher:University of Toronto Press
Print ISBN:9780802079527
eText ISBN:9781442678934
Edition:1
Copyright:1997
Format:Page Fidelity

eBook Features

Instant Access

Purchase and read your book immediately

Read Offline

Access your eTextbook anytime and anywhere

Study Tools

Built-in study tools like highlights and more

Read Aloud

Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you

How, in a world that is drastically changing, can the Inuit preserve their identity? Louis-Jacques Dorais explores this question in Quaqtaq, the first ethnography of a contemporary Canadian Inuit community to be published in over twenty-five years.

The community of Quaqtaq is a small village on Hudson Strait where hunting and gathering are still the mainstays of life. In this description of Quaqtaq, based on data collected over a thirty-year period, we get a glimpse of its early cultural history, its development into a settled community, and its present realities. Dorais identifies three principal manifestations of local identity - kinship, religion, and language - that persist despite the brutal intrusion of modernity. He concludes by examining the role politics and education have played in the relationship between Quaqtaq and the outside world.

Quaqtaq is a unique and important study that will be of interest to scholars, administrators, and citizens of Inuit and other native communities.