Identity and Adaptation to Community and Economic Change Among the Southend Cree
Date
1984
Authors
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ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
This thesis is a result of contemporary ethnographic research among
the Southend Reindeer Lake Cree of northern Saskatchewan, Canada. The study
focuses on three inter-related theoretical and empirical themes of economy,
community and cultural identity. As a preamble to the contemporary context,
there is an inclusion of data on the natural environment, particularly those
abiotic and biotic features of importance to the Southend Cree; the prehistory of
the study area in relation to northern Saskatchewan prehistory; and a brief
summary of the history of the Southend area and Southend Cree to the present time.
In order to provide a foundation for the ensuing discussion of change among the
Southend Cree, inferences are made on selected features of the protohistoric
Churchill River Basin Cree sociocultural system. A brief analysis of previous
ethnographic writing on northern Saskatchewan is also included.
The empirical data gained during field research is interpreted within a
synthesized theoretical framework, applicable to the themes of economy, community and identity. Adaptation, through the creation and utilization of strategies, which accumulate as adaptive processes, is made to a broad environmental matrix having natural and social dimensions. The local economic system is analyzed in terms of productive activities and relationships with the extra-local economic system. A discussion of the importance of traditional economic activities in boreal forest native economy is undertaken. Interaction with the external will cause changes to the local system, creating constraints on the success of local activities, and this interaction will also galvanize change in related
sociocultural components. The economic environment ;s one of instability and
unpredictability. The concept of community is analyzed in reference to three
objectives: local internal community dynamics; local/external relations; and
the causes and consequences of community structural change. External relations create active processes of fission, counterbalanced, though not necessarily equivalently, by processes of integration. Community structural differentiation is caused by local adaptation to external relations; this differentiation
is continuous, wherein some traditional structures have been maintained, but
are superseded by innovative structures, with a resultant growth in structural
complexity of the community. The persistence and maintenance of certain features
of the identity system continues despite assimilative pressures as external
relations broaden and intensify. Ethnicity is viewed as an adaptive system,
employed in interactional contexts to achieve certain objectives. It is
suggested that a group's ethnoecology and traditional economic activity has
a practical and symbolic place in the identity system, and can become one
fulcrum of identity support.
Chapters five and six provide the substantive material on Southend
economy and community. Data is presented in the two sectors of economic production-- traditional and non-traditional. There is an analysis of trapping,
commercial fishing, employment in the tourist industry, and hunting and other
subsistence activities, concluding that the production of country food and materials
is essential in a cash-short economy. It is found that traditional resource
producers have little control on externally controlled factors of price of
market demand. An analysis is provided of a proposed graphite deposit near
the community - concluding it will broaden the economic base, provided the
community is able to exert control to locally maximize employment and other
opportunities. It is found that the South end Cree adapt to economic uncertainty
by becoming occupational pluralists, obtaining subsistence and cash from a
multiplicity of sources. The community of Southend is undergoing a process of
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restructuring: while the traditional Cree extended family remains the
structural core, differentiation has created new specific and multi-puropose
organizations and institutions. A community bifurcation between Treaty and
Metis Cree is also underway, caused by the rigid local application of the
status/non-status Indian political distinction. In Southend there is an
interplay between integrational and schismatic forces: whereas the schismatic
pressures have led to a territorial and socio-political partition in the
community, integrational factors are active in elements of a common identity,
including language, kinship networks and the functioning of certain innovative
structures. Illustrative case material of Southend's external relations is
provided with discussion of impingements to Southend Reserve lands by the action
of the Hudson's Bay Company and with an analysis of impacts of the Whitesand
Dam development. The conclusion is that as Southend becomes irreversibly interlocked with the larger Canadian society, the local structural differentiation
is both a consequence and a means of adaptation to a growing complexity.
A summary analysis in the final chapter proposes to integrate the
theoretical and substantive material, including a historical sketch, and ends
with a discussion of identity and the companion themes of economy and community.
It is the finding of this research that the Southend Cree maintain, and want to
maintain a distinctive cultural identity. Certain subjectively interpreted
components of this identity are outlined, including language, cultural heritage
and kinship features. The persistence of the Southend Cree identity appears
due to their competence in resisting complete assimilation, and developing
strategies of adaptation in attempts to ameliorate the negative impacts of
rapid sociocultural change. It is suggested that identity persistence,
in that it seems to be a shared objective of the Southend Cree, is at least in
part dependent on the adaptive capacity of innovative sociopolitical structures
in the community. The study concludes, finally, with a section on recommendations
for further research.
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Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Archaeology and Anthropology
Program
Anthropology and Archaeology