Development of the Institutional Structure of the Economy of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada: Inuit Strategic Participation in Commercial Opportunities
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Development of the Institutional Structure of the Economy of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada: Inuit Strategic Participation in Commercial Opportunities By Andrew Gordon Muir A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2017 Andrew Gordon Muir 1 Abstract This dissertation aims to provide insight into the development of the institutional structure of the economy of Rankin Inlet, Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, Canada from its inception (1953-1957) to the period following the creation of the Territory of Nunavut in 1999. Its analysis is informed by the ideas of Karl Polanyi, who argues in The Great Transformation that Britain’s commercial economy rests upon an institutional structure erected by the state largely during the 19th Century and not, as Adam Smith famously suggested, on innate human tendencies. State interventions expanding the scope of commercial activity often undermined the viability of existing forms of non-commercial economic activity as well as the institutions upon which they were based. The British public, however, suffering from these developments successfully pressed for legislation to reduce the scope of commercial activity in their lives, in a process Polanyi refers to as the “countermovement.” Prior to the entry of Europeans to the Kivalliq Region, Inuit economic activity was non- commercial. Based on harvesting resources from the land and sea, it was governed by and played a role in regenerating societal institutions, principally the extended family. As Europeans and non-indigenous North Americans entered the region in the early 1700s in order to obtain and sell its resources on external markets, opportunities arose for Inuit to participate in commercial activity. Inuit adjusted their participation in these fluctuating commercial opportunities for the next 200 years, in a way that tended to maintain the primacy of existing non-commercial productive capacities and institutions. 2 The community at Rankin Inlet was founded in 1953 when several Inuit families settled to participate in wage employment at a nickel mine. Since the mine’s closing in 1962, Rankin Inlet’s Inuit residents have participated in a combination of traditional harvesting, cash-based (often commercial) and other informal economic activities, a dynamic referred to as a “mixed economy” which exists in most Nunavut communities. Cash-based economic activities in Rankin Inlet have occurred largely under the auspices of new, externally grounded institutions. During the period the nickel mine was in operation, (1953-1962) the company which operated the mine – itself supported financially and in policy by the Canadian state – yielded significant power in influencing Inuit economic choices. Following its closure, much of the power in shaping cash-based economic activities shifted to state organs, whose presence and expenditures have grown in Rankin Inlet since 1962. Rankin Inlet’s post-1962 “mixed economy” flows from Inuit adaptation to life in an urban environment and represents the latest phase of a centuries-long process of considered involvement in changing economic opportunities1. In contrast to earlier eras, in which the extended family was dominant, it is an economy founded on (at least) two major, co-existing institutions: family structures and the state. From the 1960s to the 1990s, the nascent, relatively stable economic dynamic - found in Rankin Inlet and communities across the Eastern Arctic - was exposed to potentially disruptive external forces, in particular private sector interests aiming to extract the Arctic’s non-renewable 1 Renée Fossett in In Order to Live Untroubled, (University of Manitoba Press, 2001), provides a comprehensive overview of Inuit survival strategies in the context of changing economic and environmental circumstances. 3 resources with the legal and regulatory support of the Canadian state. As opportunities for self- representation at the federal level grew over the during the same period, Inuit across the Eastern Arctic sought institutions with political and sovereign powers similar to those of Canada’s provinces as well as special rights for Inuit including the ability to set the terms by which large- scale resource development projects could proceed (if at all). Inuit efforts in this regard led to tangible results, including, importantly, the signing of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA) in 1993 and (as per the NLCA) the creation of the Territory of Nunavut in 1999. Through the various provisions of NLCA (including the creation of Nunavut) Inuit have obtained a measure of sovereign control over how commercial, state, and traditional economic activity occurs its territory, including the power to shape and/or reject projects which could affect this balance. Inuit strategic participation in available commercial opportunities over the centuries, as well as more recent efforts leading to the signing of the NLCA and the creation of Nunavut, bear important similarities to British society’s 19th Century countermovement described by Polanyi. Both groups (Inuit and British society) used available means to limit the power of commercial forces in their lives. Whereas the efforts of British society aimed to reduce the scope of existing commercial forces, those of Inuit in Nunavut focused on restraining and shaping the scope commercial forces moving forward. 4 Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest thanks to the following people and organizations for their invaluable support and assistance: Sandra Muir, Gordon Muir, Dr. Colleen Muir, Bruce Muir, Dr. Ian McKelvey, Clarissa Lo, Prof. Frances Abele, Prof. Philip Ryan, Prof. Lisa Mills, Prof. Umut Riza Ozkan, Rosa Putulik, Patrick Karlik, Resources and Sustainable Development in the Arctic (ReSDA), the Hamlet of Rankin Inlet, all interview participants, all residents of Rankin Inlet who kindly welcomed me into their community and assisted me in numerous ways, all counsellors and advisors who worked with me, my friends and extended family, 5 Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 14 Rankin Inlet Context ............................................................................................................................... 14 Definition of Key Terms, Research Question, Dissertation Main Argument and Dissertation Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 15 Explanation of Key Terms ................................................................................................................... 15 Research Question .............................................................................................................................. 17 Dissertation Main Argument ............................................................................................................... 26 Discussion of Methodology ................................................................................................................. 27 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 33 Sahlins’s Continuum of Reciprocity ....................................................................................................... 35 Commercial Exchange as Negative Reciprocity ..................................................................................... 40 The Role of the State in Commercial Exchange ..................................................................................... 40 Karl Polanyi and Human Responses to Commercial Forces .................................................................. 41 Ideological Basis and Function of the Early Canadian State .................................................................. 48 Post Confederation National Policy ................................................................................................... 51 Treaties with Local Indigenous Groups as a Tool for Westward Economic Expansion ......................... 53 Emergence of Canada’s “North” as Conceptually Separate from the “West” ........................................ 54 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 58 CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................................ 60 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 60 Inuit Thule Ancestry ............................................................................................................................... 61 Historic Origins of the Caribou Inuit ...................................................................................................... 64 Kivalliq Region Geography .................................................................................................................... 67 Caribou Inuit Material Subsistence ......................................................................................................... 68 The Institutional Foundation of Caribou Inuit Society ..........................................................................