The Effects of Inuit Drum Dancing on Psychosocial Well-Being and Resilience

Tim Murray

doi:10.5771/9781793609786

Summary

Since time immemorial, Inuit drum dancing songs have been used throughout the Arctic to reaffirm kinship ties, decompress from the rigors of hunting and gathering, and redirect competitive behavior. The Effects of Inuit Drum Dancing on Psychosocial Well-Being and Resilience: Productivity and Cultural Competence in an Inuit Settlement explores the sociocultural context surrounding two forms of traditional Inuit drum dancing in Ulukhaktok, an Inuit settlement in the Canadian Northwest Territories. Tim Murray uses case studies and social script analysis to argue that drum dance participation has emerged in this community as a way of supporting the psychosocial well-being of the settlement’s younger population and to explore how in the wake of colonization, drum dancing has resolidified in Ulukhaktok. Specifically, chapters examine the impacts of generational isolation and its downstream effects on the lives of settlement youth and young adults, the deployment of drum dancing as a tactical resource for modulating emotional access with elders, and its reemergence within the Ulukhaktok taskscape as a platform for reinterpreting local understandings of productivity and cultural competence.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2023
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-0977-9
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-0978-6
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 116
Product type: Book Titles

1. Dedication No access
2. Contents No access
3. Figures and Tables No access
4. 1. Figures No access
  2. Tables No access
5. Acknowledgments No access
1. Airports, Pizzly Bears, and Some Math on the Wind No access
2. Christmas Games No access
3. Inuit Epistemology, Emotional Development, and Generational Isolation No access
4. The Role of Affective Bonding in Inuit Epistemology and Social Life No access
5. Setting Boundaries No access
6. Chapter Summary No access
7. Notes No access
1. History No access
2. Drum Dancing Practices in Ulukhaktok No access
3. The Inuvialuit Drum Dance Tradition No access
4. The Inuinnait Drum Dance Tradition No access
5. Note No access
1. Risky Propositions No access
2. Importance of Productivity No access
3. Taking a Break No access
4. Notes No access
1. Tactics, Strategies, and Affective Bonding in Inuit Society No access
2. Drum Dancing and the Modulation of Social Boundaries No access
3. Tactical Use of the Inuinnaqtun Dialect No access
4. Notes No access
1. A Tale of Two Fieldnotes No access
2. The Taskscape Concept No access
3. 1. Part I: Subsistence-Based Economic Activity No access
  2. Part II: Wage Labor–Based Economic Activity No access
  3. Part III: Drum Dancing and the Domain of Cultural Productivity No access
4. Drum Dancing and Stress Release No access
5. Conclusions No access
6. Notes No access
Appendix No access Pages 99 - 102
References No access Pages 103 - 108
Index No access Pages 109 - 114
About the Author No access Pages 115 - 116