The Social Role of Technology in Coastal Alaska |
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Authors: | L M Frink |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 455003, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5003, USA |
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Abstract: | Novel technologies linked to women and men through identity-demarcated tasks and knowledge sets can potentially have differential
and even long-term effects on each group. This study follows the trajectory of two significant imports into the coastal western
Alaskan system, the firearm and the metal cook pot. These imports had different implications for coastal Yup’ik women and
men, young and old. Over time the gun became an integral piece of a man’s tool kit and one that had the potential to boost
production and thus a man’s access to status-building. However, these same tools had the potential to undermine the apprenticeship
system of male authority. Likewise, the metal cook pot replaced the productive oversight and skill set of elder women’s ceramic
production but created paths of independence for younger Yup’ik women. These changes in technology destabilized relative balances
of gender and age based status, security, and authority and fashioned new gender and age based social and economic opportunities
and limitations. |
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Keywords: | Colonialism Identity collectives Technology Arctic |
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