Circumpolar lives and livelihood : a comparative ethnoarchaeology of gender and subsistence Cover Image

Book

Circumpolar lives and livelihood : a comparative ethnoarchaeology of gender and subsistence / edited by Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach.

Jarvenpa, Robert. (Added Author). Brumbach, Hetty Jo, 1943- (Added Author).

Summary:

Circumpolar Lives and Livelihood is a cross-cultural ethnoarchaeological study of the gendered nature of subsistence in northern hunter-gatherer-fisher societies. Based on field studies of four circumpolar societies, it documents the complexities of women’s and men’s involvement in food procurement, processing, and storage, and the relationship of such behaviors to the built landscape. Avoiding simplistic stereotypes of male and female roles, the framework of “gendered landscapes” reveals the variability and flexibility of women’s and men’s actual lives in a manner useful for archaeological interpretations of hunter-foragers.

Innovative in scope and design, this is the first study to employ a controlled, four-way, cross-cultural comparison of gender and subsistence. Members of an international team of anthropologists experienced in northern scholarship apply the same task-differentiation methodology in studies of Chipewyan hunter-fishers of Canada, Khanty hunter-fisher-herders of Western Siberia, Sámi intensive reindeer herders of northwestern Finland, and Iñupiaq maritime hunters of the Bering Strait of Alaska. This database on gender and subsistence is used to reassess one of the bedrock concepts in anthropology and social science: the sexual division of labor.

Record details

ISBN: 0803226063 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 9780803226067 (cloth : alk. paper)
Physical Description: xii, 330 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
Publisher: Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, c2006.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction: Gender, subsistence, and ethnoarchaeology / Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach -- Chipewyan society and gender relations / Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa -- Chipewyan hunters : a task differentiation analysis / Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach -- Khanty society and gender relations / Elena Glavatskaya -- Khanty hunter-fisher-herders : a task differentiation analysis of Trom'agan women's and men's subsistence activities / Elena Glavatskaya -- Sámi society and gender relations / Jukka Pennanen -- Sámi reindeer herders : a task differentiation analysis / Jukka Pennanen -- Iñupiaq society and gender relations / Carol Zane Jolles -- Iñupiaq maritime hunters : summer subsistence work in Diomede / Carol Zane Jolles -- Conclusion: Toward a comparative ethnoarchaeology of gender / Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa.