Wandering Spirits : Loneliness and Longing in Greenland / Janne Flora.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Flora, Janne, Author.

Series:

Chicago scholarship online.

Chicago scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Inuit--Greenland--Social conditions.

Inuit.

Loneliness--Greenland.

Loneliness.

Loneliness--Social aspects--Greenland.

Social isolation--Greenland.

Social isolation.

Suicide--Greenland.

Suicide.

Interpersonal relations--Greenland.

Interpersonal relations.

Kinship--Greenland--Psychological aspects.

Kinship.

Inuit--Kinship--Greenland--Psychological aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (200 pages)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

It is common to think of the Arctic as remote, perched at the farthest reaches of the world-a simple and harmonious, isolated utopia. But the reality, as Janne Flora shows us, is anything but. In Wandering Spirits, Flora reveals how deeply connected the Arctic is to the rest of the world and how it has been affected by the social, political, economic, and environmental shifts that ushered in the modern age. In this innovative study, Flora focuses on Inuit communities in Greenland and addresses a central puzzle: their alarmingly high suicide rate. She explores the deep connections between loneliness and modernity in the Arctic, tracing the history of Greenland and analyzing the social dynamics that shaped it. Flora's thorough, sensitive engagement with the families that make up these communities uncovers the complex interplay between loneliness and a host of economic and environmental practices, including the widespread local tradition of hunting. Wandering Spirits offers a vivid portrait of a largely overlooked world, in all its fragility and nuance, while engaging with core anthropological concerns of kinship and the structure of social relations.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

1. The Return

2. Loneliness

3. Persons Apart

4. Nobody Wants to Be a Qivittoq

5. Be-Longing

6. Who(se) Are You?

7. Asking Why

8. You Are Given Your Name So You Won't Be Lonely

Appendix 1: Kinship Terminology

Appendix 2: Glossary of Other Greenlandic Language Terms

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2019.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780226610733

022661073X

OCLC:

1086610913