Enacting and renewing identity, kinship, and humanity on the sea ice

Abstract

In communities across the Arctic, the formation and evolution of sea ice each year is accompanied by the practice of season- and environment-specific forms of hunting, travel, and leisure. On the dynamic and ephemeral ice, these practices are shaped by the relationships, movements, and actions of human and nonhuman actors, and are entwined in expressions of kinship, identity, and humanity. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork undertaken in Arviat, on the west coast of Hudson Bay, this paper employs descriptive ethnography to explore the role of sea ice in the formation, transformation, and expression of social relationships and the performance of identity and humanity. Despite its transitory and seasonal nature, sea ice harbors the memories, identities, and relationships of the people who inhabit it. Evidence of this is to be found both in the ongoing re-inscription of the ice and the placing of objects and artifacts on it; and in the sea ice narrative and discourse that flows through community life. Through Ingold's theory of lines, it is argued that the embodied acts and bodily extensions particular to sea ice reinvigorate and renew expressions of who people are, where they belong, and how they relate to the world around them.