Kangiqsujuaq - Canada

Kangiqsujuaq is a settlement of approximately 800 people on the east coast of Nunavik. All but a handful of residents are Inuit beneficiaries of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. The settlement is currently undergoing considerable growth and development. Kangiqsujuarmiut largely work in the public sector, while some work at fly-in fly-out nickel mines in the region. Nevertheless, poverty and food insecurity remain high, as a result of limited employment opportunities, a mismatch between available employment and local values and educational attainment, and a high cost of living. Traditional foods, such as arctic char, caribou, beluga, and seal, continue to provide an important source of calories and nutrients, and hunting and fishing activities remain a central component of Inuit identity.

My dissertation research in Kangiqsujuaq focused on sharing of traditional food and food security; investigating in particular the relationship between food sharing networks and socioeconomic status in the settlement. This work has been used by the community to obtain funding to support young Inuit families to participate in hunting and fishing activities. Currently I am working on the analysis of data on foraging activities collected during my dissertation fieldwork. My recent fieldwork has focused on using anthropological methods as a way of helping communities identify priority areas for research.

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Ready, E. 2019. Why subsistence matters. Hunter-Gatherer Research 3 (4): 635–649.

Koster, J., McElreath, R. et al. 2019. The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation. bioRxiv.

Ready, E. 2018. Who, being loved, is poor? Poverty, marriage, and changing family structures in the Canadian Arctic. Human Organization 77 (2): 122–134.

Bliege Bird, R., Ready, E., and Power, E.A., 2018. The social significance of subtle signals. Nature Human Behaviour 2 (2): 1–6.

Power, E. and Ready, E. 2018. Building bigness: Reputation, prominence, and social capital in rural South India. American Anthropologist 120 (3): 444–459.

Ready, E. 2018. Sharing-based social capital associated with harvest production and wealth in the Canadian Arctic. PLoS ONE 13 (3): e1093759.

Ready, E. and Collings, P. 2018. Rethinking "Big problems" in Arctic health. Anthropology News 59 (1): e71-e76.

Ready, E. and Power, E.A. 2018. Why wage-earners hunt. Food sharing, social structure and influence in an Arctic mixed economy. Current Anthropology 59 (1): 74–97.