Acculturating Eskimo Arts: the Diffusion of Government Sponsored Production Facilities in Alaska and Canada.

Abstract

The dissertation helps to explain the regionally diverse nature of a major North American Arctic arts and crafts industry. A spatial diffusion analysis of Alaskan and Canadian government production facilities among post-World War II rural Eskimo communities reveals regional variations in both the times and intensities of adoption, and in the cultural and political economic significance of such adoption. The Alaskan and Canadian governments first promoted arts and crafts production facilities among rural North American Eskimo communities after the end of World War II as part of their northern development programs. Although the Alaskan government promoted facilities among only a few communities in the northwest and southwest corners of the state, the Canadian government promoted facilities among more than forty communities throughout the central and eastern regions of the Arctic. Also, the Alaskan facilities have produced primarily ivory curios for a local tourist market, whereas the Canadian facilities have produced stone carvings and prints for the international fine arts market. Furthermore, these latter facilities have provided many Canadian Eskimos with a major source of income and , according to outside observors, a renewed source of cultural pride. Several methodologies are employed in the diffusion analysis. Cartographical techniques reveal two major patterns diffusing outward from the Bering Straits Region in Alaska and the Arctic Quebec Region in Canada. These patterns differ in their rates and intensities of adoption, and in the types of facilities adopted. Historical and statistical techniques confirm a major hypothesis of the study: the diffusion patterns were effected by the rural Eskimos' regionally varied needs for a government sponsored arts and crafts industry, and by the Alaskan and Canadian governments' respective interests in providing rural Eskimos with such an industry. These findings reflect recent developments in the Third World diffusion theory literature: diffusion processes are often effected less by distance decay and urban hierarchy functions than they are by underlying supply and dem and factors. Furthermore, the nature and importance of such factors has differed in Alaska and Canada. In terms of the Eskimos' dem and for economic aid, the earliest and most intensely involved adopters are among the moderate size Eskimo communities of the more isolated and economically depressed regions of the Arctic. Thus, the more widespread diffusion of the Canadian facilities is partly explained by the more economically depressed and isolated conditions of the Canadian as compared to the Alaskan Eskimos. In terms of the Alaskan and Canadian governments' supply of production facilities, these differences in the diffusion patterns are further explained by the two governments' respective northern development policies. In Alaska, such policies have involved the diffusion of information about urban based vocational and educational programs; in Canada, they have involved the diffusion of the programs themselves to the rural Eskimos. In effect, these two policies reflect two contrary northern acculturation processes: the one assimilative, the other isolative. The diffusion analysis concludes with a more speculative discussion of the cultural and political-economic significance of the relative "success" of the two government arts and crafts programs.