This Dissertation Research project by Hiroko Ikuta, PI Molly Lee, will compare dance and song performance and the development of ethnic identity among the Inupiat and the Yup'ik of Alaska. The research will examine how the nature and structure of Inupiat and Yup'ik peoples' aesthetic forms of expression, indigenous language proficiency, and meanings of traditions are manifested in song and dance and shaped by political, economic, and historical events.
The modern Yup'ik and Inupiaq Eskimos of Alaska contrast provocatively as to geographical area, subsistence patterns, language, and culture. For both groups, song and dance have long been vehicles for transmitting history, traditions, and cultural values. Today, dance is also a way of articulating ethnic identity, interpreting tradition, and representing culture in political discourse. Among the Inupiat of Barrow, Alaska, dance combines cultural aesthetics with environmental knowledge. For them, dance and song from the past express their identity as an ethnic minority. By contrast, the orientation of Yup'ik dance is to the present, not the past. These comparative situations stimulate several research questions: How are endangered language preservation programs, socio economic situations, and political discourses with the dominant society connected to contemporary Eskimo understandings of tradition? Whereas some indigenous groups define their identity as emergent from old tradition, while others like the Yup'iks use tradition as a starting point for incorporating new styles evocative of modern culture?
This study will foster a better understanding of the nature and structure of Eskimo peoples' aesthetic forms of expression, indigenous language retention, their traditionality, and the meanings of tradition wrought by political, economic, and historical events. I hypothesize that dance performances are the key sphere where people regenerate, reinterpret, and renegotiate their traditions to themselves and to wider audiences. Comparative research will provide the basis of my analysis of the meanings of dance, song, and tradition, particularly the relationships between expressive cultures, knowledge systems, and perception of the environment. I will focus on how language endangerment relates to the creation of ritual language through traditional dances and their accompanying songs. By comparing Yup'ik and Inupiaq communities varying as to language maintenance, colonial history, and economic development, this project will contribute to anthropological theory in several ways: 1) role of dance and song as pragmatic, material activities; 2) relationship between song and language endangerment; and 3) tradition defined by indigenous peoples and asymmetrical power relationships.
