University of Calgary Press www.uofcpress.com KARIM-ALY S. KASSAM BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY AND INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING: HUMAN ECOLOGY IN THE ARCTIC by Karim-Aly S. Kassam ISBN 978-1-55238-566-1 BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY AND INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING HUMAN ECOLOGY IN THE ARCTIC THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. It is an electronic version of a book that can be purchased in physical form through any bookseller or on-line retailer, or from our distributors. Please support this open access publication by requesting that your university purchase a print copy of this book, or by purchasing a copy yourself. If you have any questions, please contact us at ucpress@ucalgary.ca Cover Art: The artwork on the cover of this book is not open access and falls under traditional copyright provisions; it cannot be reproduced in any way without written permission of the artists and their agents. The cover can be displayed as a complete cover image for the purposes of publicizing this work, but the artwork cannot be extracted from the context of the cover of this specific work without breaching the artist s copyright. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: This open-access work is published under a Creative Commons licence. This means that you are free to copy, distribute, display or perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to its authors and publisher, that you do not use this work for any commercial gain in any form, and that you in no way alter, transform, or build on the work outside of its use in normal academic scholarship without our express permission. If you want to reuse or distribute the work, you must inform its new audience of the licence terms of this work. For more information, see details of the Creative Commons licence at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ UNDER THE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCE YOU MAY: read and store this document free of charge; distribute it for personal use free of charge; print sections of the work for personal use; read or perform parts of the work in a context where no financial transactions take place. UNDER THE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCE YOU MAY NOT: gain financially from the work in any way; sell the work or seek monies in relation to the distribution of the work; use the work in any commercial activity of any kind; profit a third party indirectly via use or distribution of the work; distribute in or through a commercial body (with the exception of academic usage within educational institutions such as schools and universities); reproduce, distribute, or store the cover image outside of its function as a cover of this work; alter or build on the work outside of normal academic scholarship. Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the wording around open access used by Australian publisher, re.press, and thank them for giving us permission to adapt their wording to our policy http://www.re-press.org/content/view/17/33/
K ARIM-ALY S. K ASSAM BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY AND INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING HUMAN ECOLOGY IN THE ARCTIC
BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY AND INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING
NORTHERN LIGHTS SERIES William Barr, general editor Copublished with the Arctic Institute of North America ISSN 1701-0004 This series takes up the geographical region of the North (circumpolar regions within the zone of discontinuous permafrost) and publishes works from all areas of northern scholarship, including natural sciences, social sciences, earth sciences, and the humanities. No. 1 Nunavik: Inuit-Controlled Education in Arctic Quebec Ann Vick-Westgate Copublished with the Katutjiniq Regional Development Council No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5 Many Faces of Gender: Roles and Relationships through Time in Northern Indigenous Communities Edited by Lisa Frink, Rita S. Shepard, and Gregory A. Reinhardt Copublished with University Press of Colorado New Owners in their Own Land: Minerals and Inuit Land Claims Robert McPherson War North of 80: The Last German Arctic Weather Station of World War II Wilhelm Dege, translated and edited by William Barr Copublished with University Press of Colorado Writing Geographical Exploration: Thomas James and the Northwest Passage 1631 33 Wayne K.D. Davies No. 6 As Long as This Land Shall Last: A History of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, 1870 1939 René Fumoleau No. 7 Breaking Ice: Renewable Resource and Ocean Management in the Canadian North Edited by Fikret Berkes, Rob Huebert, Helen Fast, Micheline Manseau, and Alan Diduck No. 8 Alliance and Conflict: The World System of the Inupiaq Eskimos Ernest S. Burch Copublished with the University of Nebraska Press No. 9 No. 10 No. 11 No. 12 Tanana and Chandalar: The Alaska Field Journals of Robert A. McKennan Edited by Craig Mishler and William E. Simeone Copublished with University of Alaska Press Resurrecting Dr. Moss: The Life and Letters of a Royal Navy Surgeon, Edward Lawton Moss, MD, RN, 1837 1880 Paul C. Appleton, edited by William Barr Lands that Hold One Spellbound: A Story of East Greenland Spencer Apollonio Biocultural Diversity and Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Human Ecology in the Arctic Karim-Aly S. Kassam
KARIM-ALY S. KASSAM BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY AND INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING HUMAN ECOLOGY IN THE ARCTIC
2009 Karim-Aly S. Kassam University of Calgary Press 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, Alberta Canada T2N 1N4 www.uofcpress.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1-800-893-5777. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Kassam, Karim-Aly S., 1964- Biocultural diversity and indigenous ways of knowing : human ecology in the Arctic / Karim- Aly S. Kassam. (Northern lights series, 1701-0004 ; 12) Co-published by Arctic Institute of North America. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-55238-253-0 Issued also in electronic format: ISBN 978-1-55238-566-1 ISBN 978-1-55238-492-3 1. Human ecology Arctic regions. 2. Indigenous peoples Arctic regions. 3. Subsistence economy Arctic regions Case studies. 4. Biodiversity conservation Arctic regions. 5. Cultural pluralism Arctic regions. 6. Traditional ecological knowledge Arctic regions. I. Arctic Institute of North America II. Title. III. Series: Northern lights series ; 12 GF891.K38 2009 304.20911 3 C2009-900885-8 The University of Calgary Press acknowledges the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for our publications. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Printing Inc. This book is printed on FSC Silva Enviro paper Cover design by Melina Cusano Page design and typesetting by Melina Cusano
For Zarina and Saleh