The End of Nature? Inughuit Life on the Edge of Time

ABSTRACT

The Inughuit of Northwest Greenland are hunters of marine mammals and other animal species of the High Arctic ecological system. Their life is rapidly changing along with the warming Arctic, and they experience massive changes in the environment that always sustained them. This fuels a question of the end of nature, to be addressed through three different natural materialities: ice, water, and land – all of them deeply infiltrating social life. The ice, now melting rapidly, has provided the infrastructure of moving into and about in the region. The water, now opening widely, has made marine mammals the major game. The land, now slowly expanding, increasingly features as a repository of unknown resources. It is suggested that the Inughuit have always dwelled within an ‘ending of nature’, seen as a non-linear process deeply embedded in larger geo-social processes of multiple temporalities.

KEYWORDS:

• High Arctic landscapes
• emergent natures
• melting ice
• ruination
• protection

Acknowledgements

Fieldwork in Northwest Greenland was made possible through an ERC adv. Grant (229459 – Waterworlds, 2009–2014) and by support to the North-Water project from the Carlsberg and Velux Foundations to (2014–2017). The author also wants to thank the reviewers for their critical and productive comments to earlier drafts; their work is much appreciated. Last but not least the editors of the special issue, of which this article is part, must be thanked for their invitation, and no less for their careful editorial reading and valuable suggestions.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Carlsbergfondet [The North Water Project 2014–2018]; H2020 European Research Council [Adv. Grant 229459]; The Velux Foundation [The North Water Project 2014–2018].