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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Relations of Power and Domination in a World Polity
whaling, for purposes of local Aboriginal consumption carried out by or on behalf of
Aboriginal, indigenous or native peoples who share strong community, familial, social, and
cultural ties related to a continuing traditional dependence on whaling and on the use of
whales. Local Aboriginal consumption means the traditional uses of whale products by
local aboriginal, indigenous, or native communities in meeting their nutritional, subsistence
and cultural requirements (Donovan, 1982b: 83).
Hence, the perception of indigenousness is probably in no other area more relevant than in the area
of international whaling (Sowa, 2013a).
The example of the indigenous people of Greenland chosen for this paper is especially informative
from a research perspective because on the largest island in the world with its almost 57,000
inhabitants, one can currently observe a nation-building process in which the Greenlandic elite is
discussing whether Greenland is an indigenous people and/or a small Nordic nation. The degree to
which they have obtained autonomy has progressed to the extent that it is possible for Greenland‘s
intellectuals and politicians to pursue identity politics themselves (Sowa, 2012). Over the centuries it
was always the cultural others who defined the Greenlandic people in relation to their own
respective European society. Now, however, Greenland is working on presenting its own cultural
representation or its own cultural self-image in world society. This concerns the production of we-
images that are both socially accepted by the people in Greenland and considered legitimate from
the outside by world society. The following section deals with two different we-images emerging in
two versions of an internal working paper which will be analyzed in the cultural sociology
perspective.
Between Indigeneity and Nation:
Two Working Papers of the Greenlandic Self-Government
The target of independence and the status of Greenlanders as an indigenous people have been
repeatedly discussed since the early 1990s by expert groups
1
comprising Greenlandic and foreign
intellectuals. The essence of the problem is whether Greenland represents an indigenous people or a
small Nordic nation. This problem can be witnessed in two different versions of the same working
paper
2
of one expert group of the Greenlandic self-government. Analyzing them proves very
informative in regard to the debated images of representation of the Greenlandic Inuit. First we shall
take a look at the early version (document A) in order to gain insights into the changes that were
made for the later version (document B), and discuss those later.
The initial document A has 16 pages and begins with the definition of indigenous peoples, following
the wording of the convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) (chapter 1), in
order to then find reasons that speak for the status of Greenlanders as an indigenous people
(chapter 2) as well as those that speak against it (chapter 3). Subsequently, the arguments for and
against are considered (chapter 4), followed by a conclusion (chapter 5). In the working paper the
authors assert that what supports the argument of Greenlanders being an indigenous people is that
Greenland is home to three tribes of indigenous peoples: the West Greenlanders (
Kalaallit)
, the
Thule people (
Inughuit)
, and the East Greenlanders (
Iivit
), all of which call themselves
Kalaallit
today.
An official court ruling against the Danish Government and to the benefit of the Thule tribe verifies