Skip to main content

ETHNOS_APP

Home • Search • Journals • List 0

“We Talk to You Because We Love You”

Learning from Elders at Culture Camp

Bibliographic Data

ID18949437
AuthorsAnn Fienup‐riordan (Anchorage School District, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume26
Issue2
Pages173-187
Publication date2001-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropology & Humanism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1548-1409 • E-ISSN: 1559-9167
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/ahu.2001.26.2.173
OpenAlexW2121991791
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited5

This article explores the activities of the Calista Elders Council (CEC) an example of “culturalism,” that is, the process of self‐conscious, deliberate use of identity, culture, and heritage in the struggle for recognition of a distinctive Yup'ik way of life. Culture camp in southwestern Alaska provides a modern means for the traditional end of training young people to be good listeners and, in their turn, become speakers truth. The emphasis on talk remains, reflecting an indigenous view of how young people should learn and elders should teach. Grandparents, even more than parents, were an important source of moral instruction in the past. Contemporary village children spend much less time in the presence of elders. Through CEC activities, some elders seek to reclaim that space and make their voices heard. Elders at camp presented instruction in group settings, based on their own personal experience: “I tell what I know.” They made no claims to completeness or to imparting the one true faith. Their sense of their own culture was neither essentialist nor bounded, and the emphasis was not on presenting a unified, homogeneous, systematic view, as in some instances of cultural revival and renewal. During evening sessions elders engaged in serious moral discourse. They talked about not only what young people needed to know but how they were expected to learn it. Like the grandmother we honor here, they were teaching nothing less than how to learn

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Essentialism · Faith · Grandparent · Honor · Indigenous · Media studies · Nothing · Political science · Recreation · Sociology · Gender Studies · Indigenous and Place-Based Education · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Psychology · Service-Learning and Community Engagement

  • Postcolonial Suicide Among Inuit in Arctic Canada

    Open Access•Michael J Kral•Culture Medicine and Psychiatry•2012

  • Reclaiming Land, Identity and Mental Wellness in Biigtigong Nishnaabeg Territory

    Open Access•E Nightingale, C Richmond•International Journal of…•2022

  • Anishinabe youth perceptions about community health

    Open Access•Katie Big-Canoe, C Richmond•Health & Place•2014

  • Building structures of environmental repossession to reclaim land, self-determination and Indigenous wellness

    Open Access•E Nightingale, C Richmond•Health & Place•2021

  • Participant Observation and Phased Assertion as Research Strategies in the Canadian Arctic

    Open Access•Peter Collings•CAM•2009

  • Mapping resilience pathways of Indigenous youth in five circumpolar communities

    Open Access•James Allen, K Hopper et al.•Transcultural Psychiatry•2014

  • Making ecumenes

    Open Access•Cecilia Anne Mccallum, Cecilia Mccallum•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•2020

  • Wisdom sits in places

    Keith H Basso•Wisdom sits in places•1996

  • Biographies of scientific objects

    Lorraine Daston•Biographies of scientific objects•2000

  • Nations and Nationalism

    Philip Spencer, Philip J Spencer et al.•Nations and Nationalism•2019

  • Culture, identity, and politics

    Ernest Gellner•Culture, identity, and politics•1987

  • Two or Three Things that I Know about Culture

    Marshall Sahlins•Journal of the Royal Anthropologica…•1999

Citations per year0.41
Citation span2009 - 2022 (14)
Highly citedNo
Open DOISci-Hub
Ethnos_APP • Open Source Project • MIT License • Frontend v2.0.0 • Privacy and Cookies • API Documentation: api.ethnos.app/docs • API Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17049435 • Frontend Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17050053 • cruz.rio.br • Expectantes Misericordiae