Intergroup Behavior and Imagery

The Case of Chipewyan and Cree

Bibliographic Data

ID2734603
AuthorsRobert Jarvenpa (corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume21
Issue4
Pages283
Publication date1982-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0014-1828 • E-ISSN: 2160-3510
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3773760
OpenAlexW243562770
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited6

The social anthropological literature on marriage, trade, and political alliance contains ample documentation of the varied manner in which co-operative interactions between societies or ethnic groups reinforce cultural differences. Barth's (1969:15-19) notion of the complementarity of cultural differences among interacting groups is an attempt to model such systems of interdependence, and it is a concept with somewhat paradoxical implications for the organization of ethnic boundaries. Rather than reducing behavioral variation to homogeneous codes and values, social interchange between ethnic groups is viewed as a structured canalizing process which permits cultural differences to persist. Moreover, when interactions are of a co-operative nature, transactions between groups may be enhanced and stabilized by those differences. There is a reverse side to this processual coin. Economic competition, warfare and other hostile relations can also reinforce, if not magnify, social and cultural differences between societies in conflict (LeVine and Campbell 1972:29-42). It is the relationship of both combative (or negative) and co-operative (or posi? tive) forms of interaction to outgroup imagery and social distance that forms the general concern of this paper. Are positive and negative interactions accommodated in the same system of relationships? Is current intergroup behavior wedded to socioeconomic arrangements developed between ethnic groups in the past? Are interethnic attitudes and stereotypes symbolic commentaries upon and resolutions of distressing behavior? Such questions form an analytical framework for assessing empirical case material on Chipewyan-Cree relations in contempo? rary northcentral Canada. The preliminary answer at this stage of investigation will be affirmative. Intergroup behavior and imagery appear to operate in all the contexts suggested above but in a complex manner that requires the understand? ing provided by a judicious balance in historical and functional-synchronic forms of research. The Chipewyan and Cree Indians are both subarctic hunting people who became intimately involved with each other in the EuroCanadian-organized fur trading economy. While many transactions between the two groups are of a cooperative nature, Chipewyan attitudes and assessments of their Cree neighbors are highly variable and laden with much negative imagery. This ambivalent ethnic stereotyping will be analyzed in terms of its role as an ideological commentary upon historical conflicts between Chipewyan and Cree and as an on-going boundary-maintaining mechanism. Special emphasis will be given to the position of the Chipewyan in interethnic exchanges, particularly the southern Chipewyan who have maintained the most direct involvement with Cree communities

Geography · Canadian Identity and History · History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Psychology · Social Psychology