Literacy and social identity in a Nunavut community

grantor: University of TorontoThe problem addressed in this thesis is the relationship between literacy and social identity in the Nunavut community of Igloolik. I used qualitative methods to work with a representative sample of the adult Inuit and non-Native population of this Northern Canadian community during fieldwork in 1990, 1992, and 1993. I found that getting an education (in English), learning the finals (in Inuktitut), and reading and writing traditionally (in Inuktitut) are ways of using literacy that distinguish active biliterates, other younger Inuit, older Inuit, and non-Natives. Active biliterates are able to access resources in the local cash economy because they have got an education and learned the finals, the symbols for syllable-final consonants in written Inuktitut. Other younger Inuit face unemployment if they have not got an education and learned the finals. Older Inuit read and write traditionally but this does not help them to access resources in the cash economy. Non-Natives are employed locally because they have got an education. These differences have emerged in the context of processes in which local Inuit have been sedentarized; the orthography of their language, Inuktitut, has been standardized; and a system of credentialization by grade level has been introduced. These processes reflect in turn the dynamics of the legitimation of the Canadian state in the North and the superimposition of a cash economy onto an economy of structured sharing with kin. Future decisions in literacy planning must take into account the social identities of the residents of Nunavut.Ph.D