Many
Americans form their individual interpretations of the world by examining
current events through the media. Print
media as well as television and radio reporting is often taken as an
objectively written and unbiased source.
Many think that if something is presented in the news- whether reported
by an Associated Press journalist, Dan Rather, Amy Goodman, or from even a
campus newspaper- that they are receiving data that can be backed up by facts
and that is presented in order to educate rather than persuade the reader. It is my assertion that anthropologists-
through critical analytical techniques, cultural relativism, and semiotics -
might be able to further inform the reader that what one reads might be only a
portion of the message that is received.
Generally, semiotics demonstrates that there are myriad symbols,
indices, and iconicities that direct the recipient of signs to a particular
interpretation of those signs and that one’s habitus- or general sphere
of existence, education, cultural influence, and personal peculiarity-
influences the ways that those signs are interpreted.
I
have taken but one such example of an “objective” article from one of the most
well-read newspapers in the United States, The New York Times (February 4,
2003), and created an analysis of the presentation of the data in order to
demonstrate how the underlying signs might direct the reader to draw from the
article a particular interpretation. I
want to caution my reader that these are merely sub-surface rather than
so-called “hidden” meanings and that I am in no way hypothesizing that there is
some sort of secret message.
Just as a doctor “reads the sign” of a fever as an indicator of one body’s
reaction to a virus, or a parent “reads the signs” of shifty eyes and heavy
swallowing as a possible indication that his or her child is not telling the truth, each of us receives
information and then interprets that data through a seies of mechanisms before
coming to but one of boundless conclusions.
The
War Against the Fur Trade Backfires, Endangering a Way of Life This headline
assumes and asserts that the “war against the fur trade” had as its main goal
the preservation of all life and
all ways of life. But this
probably was not the case. One might actually
assume that the goal of “the war” was instead to make people think about how certain
sensibilities of fasion might be connected to inhumane treatment of animals. If this was the goal, then it has not
backfired so much as has had effects upon people in ways that might not be
pleasant; especially in times of cultural colonialism, the degradation of old lifeways,
and increasing unemployment.
EDMONTON, Alberta, Jan. 30 — Native Canadians here in the frigid north tend to be soft-spoken and guarded about expressing their opinions to outsiders; that is,
until the
conversation turns to the subject of the antifur campaigns that began in the
late 1960's. This
statement, the reader’s first brush with the ethnographic “other,” reminds the
reader of how outside the scene she might be.
The average American reading this story has probably never been to the
region near Edmonton, Alberta and is perhaps making her first acquaintance with
the people and mores of that area. The “Native
Canadian” is first native and next “guarded” and “soft-spoken.” The reader might think to herself “Well, how
then does Clifford Krauss know what issues are important to them?” This presents the author as an authority who
is able to get at the heart of the world of those people and then bring their
stories back to the non-native, non-Canadian reading public who
has little or no first (or even second or third) hand knowledge of what the
article is about. This statement also
implies that the “Native Canadians” have little interest in communicating with
the world-at-large on issues other than the fur trade.
Little wonder. The unintended consequences of the war against fur have hurt the livelihoods of thousands of Canadian Natives, and have enticed them to replace their lost
incomes by welcoming into unspoiled areas the oil, gas and
mining interests they once opposed. These
statements make apparent that the “Native Canadian” has been forced to change not
in the midst of our changing world but in their changing world. The reader might not think to ask how else
these people are adapting to the ever-changing reality but might assume that only the anti-fur campaign is
responsible for their changing ways.
These “natives” are presented as old-world types, not all the way back
to “primitive” or “savage” but as existing in an “unspoiled” place now pressured
by our modern sensibilities to lose some sort of their own identities. The reader might begin to feel nostalgic for
a backwards people who are suddenly- only since the late 1960s- forced to react
to modernity. These people, who were
once “unspoiled,” are now faced with the enticements of our modern world.
"I can't find the words to fight back," said Zacharias Kunuk, an Inuit film director and seal hunter who lives in the Arctic town of Igloolik. "They are a bunch of Hollywood
rich people who talk as if animals think like humans, when
they don't." The quote brings the story to
life and personalizes the problem.
Here, Mr Kunuk is presented in all of his nativeness as the “noble savage”
who is an Inuit film director as opposed to the Hollywood type. He is also characterized as a “seal hunter”
which reminds the reader of subsistence hunting rather than a “trapper” or “commercial
furrier” which indexes an opposition to modernity or for-profit types of
hunting. More likely, the war against
the fur trade has been a reaction to the massive and exterminating types of the
killing of animals for their pelts rather than to localized,
culturally-endowed, small-scale subsistence
The sentiment of Rudy Cardinal, a 43-year-old Inuvialuit who now works as a custodian at Aurora College in Inuvik, was not much kinder.
"I grew up in an old log cabin with a sod roof, traveling by dog teams, checking my nets, hunting and trapping," he said on a day not long ago. "I'd love to go back to the
old days but the bleeding hearts from Europe and the
self-righteous groups killed our way of life." Here is an individual who made a
statement of fact, which is regardless of how long ago he might have said it. By publishing “he said not long ago” reminds
the reader of the passing of time but not that Rudy Cardinal said it
recently but lived it recently.
The wholesale market of the fur industry could hardly be considered “the
old days” nor would driving a truck for a natural gas pipeline project. In fact, the old days are impossible to
recover.
Now he is training to drive heavy trucks for a proposed
natural gas pipeline project in the pristine Mackenzie River Valley. Are these the
old days? The argument is beginning to
unfold that it is either this or that. That either one could live in a log cabin and chase wildlife on a
sled and be a steward of the land or could drive a truck filled with petroleum
products that are destroying the “pristine” nature of northern Canada. Is it not true that Mr Cardinal could also make a living as a custodian at
Aurora College in Inuvik? My argument is
not to posit that Mr Cardinal should resign himself to custodial work nor do I
have solutions to the unemployment problems that are currently disrupting
capitalism on the Western front. My
position is simply that there are likely to be other options than either living
a nostaligic life or contributing to the rape of the land for natural
resources. One need not believe that either
wildlife gets killed or wildness gets destroyed and that it is as plain
and simple. This dichotomy presents the
reader with the assertion that the choice is between the two and no other. Mr Cardinal becomes the personification of
many difficult dualities that exist in the 21st Century.
Such opinions, expressed in recent weeks, hit like harpoons to the soul for environmentalists who now acknowledge that some activists went too far in their zeal to protect
baby seals from clubbing and lynx, marten, beaver, fox and
other furry animals from cruel foot traps that left them writhing in pain. This article is
about the cultural impacts of sanctions against the fur trade and the repercussions
upon small-scale indigenous groups and not about baby seals and furry animals. But, and as demonstrated in the next
statement, perhaps it is simpler to view native populations as helpless deer
caught in the headlights of modernity- whether in the form of “activists’ zeal”
or corporate logging, mining, and drilling operations. The analogies are created with an intended effect
upon the reader and upon how the reading public might want to view, or has been
trained to see, the “natives” of our world.
The campaigns against the commercial kills of seals and against inhumane treatment of animals by hunters seemed to some a moral imperative. Now those campaigns
appear to have unnecessarily snared the native populations
in sanctions that might have been more accurately aimed at large commercial
interests. Again,
the native is caught in the trap of modern-times.
"The collapse of the fur trade was a disaster for people who are guardians of the environment," said Elizabeth May, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, who now
proposes that fur trapped by Canadian Natives be labeled as
such to promote their acceptance among environmentally minded consumers. This quote might
remind my reader of a linear evolution wherein even those “activists [who] went
too far in their zeal to protect” might be able now, through a lens of “too
little, too late” to see what their actions have done. This is iconic of the intended motivation
upon the reader who might have originally thought that clubbing baby seals is
wrong but has now, with the help of the news media, been able to see that the
protection of animals might have unintended results which is a reassertion of the
opening argument of the article. The
macro-argument of Mr Krauss is presented in microscopic detail as both a change
of heart for the director of the Sierra Club and, hopefully, for the
reader-at-large of the New York Times. Also,
it is unclear here as to whether the natives or the Sierra club are the true “guardians.”
The long campaign to ban furs had many twists and turns. Public outrage led the European Economic Community to ban the import of seal pelts in 1983. Eight years later,
in 1991, the European Union passed a resolution banning the
import of fur from countries using leg-hold traps.
The 1991 European resolution was delayed for years by Canadian, Russian and the American lobbying, but the decades of campaigns against seal skins and other furs led
by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and other
groups helped change fashion tastes. This timeline makes clear that this problem is one of
linear consequence and that the fur trade, the activists, the purchaser of fur,
the natives, and the reader can all learn from the past to make better
decisions for the future.
Women who wear animal skins for coats and stoles still risk attracting nasty glares from the ecology-minded, who would probably be surprised to hear that their righteous
cause has a cost. This
statement argues that the ecology-minded are single-minded which is an
extension from the above quote that finds “activists went too far” and then, in
retrospect, realized such as a “disaster.”
Trappers who once used to report to environmental groups when logging companies were clear-cutting forests or to the Canadian military when low-flying jets were
disrupting caribou herds are no longer in a position to
perform those custodial roles. The assertion here is that there is a segment of the
population who are “custodians” and another who are disruptors of the natural
enviornment. Unfortunately, because of
the fur-trade sanctions, those individuals who want to protect wildlife are
unable to do so and the reader might wonder whom, if not trappers, will report
infractions such as those committed by clear-cutters and pilots.
Populations of wolves, once killed by trappers to protect the skins of animals caught in their traps, have soared to the detriment of buffalo and caribou herds. An explosion
in the population of beavers, which were almost extinct a century ago but now number an estimated 20 million in Canada, has caused the flooding of farmland as the
animals eagerly pursue their dam-building. It is generally
thought among conservationists that nature has always done a fine job of
population control without the influence of man. Usually, if a population of browsers or carnivores becomes
greater than the ecology can handle, competition for resources (successes and
failures in adaptation) will systematically alleviate the swell and result in a
leveling off to bring the population back in synch with the land’s carrying
capacity. The reader intuits from the above
statement though that only by the intervention of man will nature be right and
proper. Historically (and
pre-historically), as a population that is lower on the food chain declines, so
does the populations above it which, in turn, brings the level back to
equilibrium. Populations of wolves,
wild cats, and bears are exterminated not for the benefit of bison and beaver
but for the benefit of the human hunters of such prey or to alleviate
kill-activity upon domesticated grazers like sheep and cattle.
"I'm still bitter about what was done to us," said Stephen Kakfwi, the premier of the Northwest Territories. "We pleaded with Greenpeace and the others. We told them
we will have to turn to oil and gas and mining for jobs if
they took such a hard stance against the import of wild furs to Europe." With this
statement, the reader is again reminded that there is only one or the other in
choices of occupation and/or subsistence.
It is articulated in quotations so that the we as readers might hear first-hand
from the “native Canadian” and not from the author of a New York Times
article. The reader might assume that
because Mr Kakfwi is the premier of the Northwest Territories, and a resident,
that his opinion is credible.
As a young leader of his Canadian Native group, the Denes, Mr. Kakfwi opposed the development of the Mackenzie River pipeline. After the fur trade collapsed, he said,
the native groups had no choice but to negotiate royalty agreements with oil companies to make up for the loss of the fur market. Now environmentalists fear that natural
gas development in the river valley could threaten vital
habitat for the grizzly, musk ox and caribou. One might also presume that because Mr
Kakfwi is young and is a leader of the “Native group” that his opinion is authentic
and consistent. Furthermore, the reader
is reminded of an evolutionary hieararchy wherein the same place that is the home
to a native group is “habitat” for carnivores and browsers.
Similarly, impoverished Inuit settlements in northern Quebec reached an agreement last year with the Canadian government to promote offshore gas drilling in waters still
teeming with seals. Nine Cree settlements around James Bay recently voted in a referendum to allow the provincial government to flood 115 square miles of traditional
hunting lands for hydroelectric development in exchange for
millions of dollars in aid and greater autonomy. The reader might come to the
conclusion that if these native groups- who are traditionally referred to as the
custodians of the land- would trade tradition for millions of dollars, and if
it was the sanctions upon the fur-trade industry that caused this need for aid
and autonomy, then it is the war against the fur-trade to blame. This is the same conclusion that one might
arrive at if he only read the headline.
This demonstrates that the article is not a narrative that eventually
leads the reader to make up his own mind about the issue but is rather an
assemblage of statements and impressions arranged in order to support the fact
that “The war against the fur trade has indeed backfired and has endangered the
way of life for indigenous groups and wildlife alike.” This
same article, with all of its quotes, characters, and illustrative language,
could also support a headline that read “Capitalistic Maneuverings Make Use of
1960s Eco-Propaganda” or “Trappers Become Truckers, Beavers to Blame.”
Among the strongest supporters of the agreement were trappers who could no longer make a good living off the area's foxes and beavers, said Bill Namagoose, the
executive director of the Grand Council of the Quebec Cree.
"By saying don't kill the animals," Mr. Namagoose said, "they killed the economy." He added that many moose and marten would die in the flooding and that sturgeon and
walleye spawning would be affected. "But we have to
accept reality," he said. Here is one last taste of the either/or for dessert. “The reality” that is necessary to accept is
here presented as either us or them, either animals or
natives.
Hunting seals was central to a way of life for the 45,000 Inuit who used blubber for fuel and skins for clothing and tents and insulation for their igloos and wooden huts.
That way of life is now almost gone, replaced by an emerging urban landscape on the tundra. Seal meat has been replaced largely by a modern diet high in unsaturated
fats and sugar, raising local rates of diabetes. Cultural anthropology
comes out in the last lines of the article wherein subsistence and lifeways are
presented along a linear continuum of tradition and replacement, adaptative successes
and failures. The final statement will
leave the reader, if she has gotten
that far, with a scientific analysis highlighting the proof that is in the
pudding. Once the story is finished,
the final impression is that “the war” was not actually against the fur-trade
but against traditional susbsistence economies and that such institutions as
the oil industry and hydroelectric development are the only things that will
save natives from extinction. Fantastic
imagery of a nostalgic bent coupled with the dieseases of modernity and the plagues of urbanization
certainly persuade me to want to do something.
Conclusion
There can be no doubt that
many native populations have been forced to change their lifeways and cultural
traditions due to the impacts that have occurred upon this planet. This is especially apparent in the last one hundred and fifty years but
has in fact been what has made humans the adaptable animals that they (we) are. This is a problem for politicians,
sociologists, lawyers, anthropologists, and native populations (to name but a
few) to deal with and come to a mutual philosophy. Or not. I know that
blanket laws and generalized sanctions can have repercussions that effect many
for whom they are not intended and I feel that this is one of the major
dilemmas of our times. There are no
easy answers about how to handle those problems that are brought from one group
upon another. As globalization
continues to be a shaping force in the homogenization of cultures and
individuals, each of us will find it increasingly important to fully understand
the issues whether we are losing a notion of the ethnographic other or arriving
at conclusions about ourselves.
It is also important to be
cautious of how we interpret our world and why we conclude the way that we do. Careful analysis of the presentation of
reality and the impact of the signs of all types upon us is necessary in order to
be informed about our surroundings.
Kind of like the interpretation of the sign that is a semi-truck blaring
its horn, flashing its headlights, and gaining speed in your rear-view mirror.
Link to the New York Times
article without all the purple prose:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/04/international/americas/04CANA.html