Thèses / Dissertations

Economics are a defining feature of contemporary Inuit art. Nonetheless, financial considerations receive little, if any, serious attention by art historians who study the artform. On whose terms have the value and meaning of contemporary Inuit art taken shape? This dissertation explores the tension between how Inuit artists define themselves as artists and their work as art, and how contemporary Inuit art and its makers are represented in the South. The purpose of this study is not only to determine how the concept of art in the North differs from that in the South, but to identify the actual process by which contemporary Inuit art “moves” from one context to the other, gaining and losing meaning along the way. This process, although not entirely mediated by southern agents, reproduces existing power relations that obscure the actual social—and cultural—conditions of production in favour of Western notions of creativity and innovation. By juxtaposing the perspectives of prominent Cape Dorset artists with a critical examination of the treatment of contemporary Inuit art at the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, this dissertation demonstrates how the artistic and cultural values of Inuit are eclipsed by Western art philosophies and museological practices in the southern art field. Les aspects économiques sont une caractéristique définissant l’art inuit contemporain. Néanmoins, les considérations financières reçoivent peu, sinon aucune, attention sérieuse de la part des historiens qui étudient cette forme d’art. Selon les termes de qui la valeur et la signification de l’art inuit contemporain ont pris forme? Cette thèse explore le contraste entre la façon dont les artistes inuit se définissent comme artistes et définissent leur travail comme de l’art, et comment l’art inuit contemporain et ses créateurs sont représentés dans le Sud. L’objectif de l’étude n’est pas de déterminer comment le concept de l’art dans le Nord diffère de celui dans le Sud mais d’identifier le processus par lequel l’art inuit contemporain se transpose d’un contexte à l’autre, gagnant et perdant alors des significations. Ce processus, bien que pas entièrement négocié par des agents du Sud, reproduit les relations de pouvoir existantes qui obscurcissent les conditions socio-culturelles de la production à la faveur de notions occidentales de la créativité et de l’innovation. En juxtaposant les perspectives d’artistes proéminents de Cape Dorset à un examen critique du traitement de l’art inuit contemporain au Musée des beaux-arts du Canada et au Musée canadien des civilisations, cette thèse démontre comment les valeurs artistiques et culturelles des Inuit sont éclipsées par les pratiques philosophiques et muséologiques occidentales de l’art dans le Sud. This longitudinal qualitative case study of the Nunavut Teacher Education Program provides an account of the program’s growth and development, its strengths and its weaknesses, and possibilities for the future. Influenced by social constructivist theory, the dissertation includes interviews and personal experience as a participant observer within the program. In order to locate the program in its time and place, it is necessary to examine the nested contexts of traditional, colonial and post-colonial worlds from which and in which it has developed. Consequently, I begin by tracing the political and social development of Nunavut to its present day realities which are far from the often overly romantic view of the Canadian Arctic. I then outline the impact of colonialism upon the Inuit and their pre-contact traditional lifestyle before reviewing the growth and development of education. I commence with precontact traditional education and what it may have been like before describing the education experienced by Inuit, first from the missionaries, and then by the Federal government followed by the government of the Northwest Territories and finally …