Ontology on the ice
The Inuit of the Canadian Central Arctic and their animals
These two lectures are part of current research into Inuit cosmologies and the relationship between these populations of Canada's Far North and the animals that surround them. The approach is both comparative - taking into account intra-regional socio-cultural variations - and ethnohistorical - taking into account the multiple transformations that have marked these societies since the end of the 19th century, in particular sedentarization, Christianization and the arrival of modernity and the State. The research is based on written sources, but also mainly on oral sources collected during numerous knowledge transmission workshops with elders and young people from various Nunavut villages. These activities have been carried out for some twenty years in collaboration with Jarich Oosten, Professor Emeritus at the University of Leiden. They will result in a joint publication to be released in autumn 2014 entitled Hunters, Predators and Prey: Inuit Perceptions of Animals (Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books).