Skip to Main Content

Wandering Spirits: Loneliness and Longing in Greenland

Online ISBN:
9780226610733
Print ISBN:
9780226610429
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

Wandering Spirits: Loneliness and Longing in Greenland

Janne Flora
Janne Flora
Aarhus University
Find on
Published online:
19 September 2019
Published in print:
25 March 2019
Online ISBN:
9780226610733
Print ISBN:
9780226610429
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

The aim of this monograph is to understand kinship and relatedness among Greenlandic Inuit (Kalaallit) through the lens of loneliness and longing, asking what happens when relations disappoint, fail, and cease to exist. Loneliness is a social process with its own degrees and temporalities. Among the most extreme forms of self-detachment is suicide of which, Greenland has one of the highest rates in the world. Instead of seeing suicide as caused by colonization and rapid modernization, this monograph locates suicide within the conceptual framework of loneliness and relatedness, and asks what it means to live and die (by suicide) within a culture where all humans are, and will become, partial reincarnations, as their names are passed to newborn infants. Though extreme and unpleasant, suicide does not as we might expect, emerge as permanent, betwixt and between, form of death. Total rejection of society does exist however, but this form of death is projected onto an un-dead being known as qivittoq: a human person who walks into the wilderness forever and continues to exist in an uninhabitable space as a dangerous un-dead being, unable to return to human form and society. The book argues that relatedness and loneliness are not merely dualistically opposed concepts or social practices, but co-constituted, and should be considered concurrently in order to grasp the meaning of kinship in the everyday lives of Greenlanders today.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close