Conclusions
In Foucault’s classic discussion of the “care of the self”, sexuality is a “dense transfer point of power” (1988: 103). Foucault, however, has been criticized for taking a much too narrow, Occidental view of sexual politics, ignoring larger imperial contexts. Indeed, the history of Europe’s discourses on sexuality cannot be exclusively explored at home (Stoler 2002). The passions were seen to be unavoidable, in the colonies as elsewhere, but they had to be channeled into a proper direction, in accordance with the moral obligations posed by the empire and the church. Sexual intercourse between European males and native women—whether they be wives, concubines, or prostitutes—was considered a “necessary evil”, a protection against carnal relations among males. As for Stefansson, his Inuit wife and family posed problems similar to those witnessed by Euro-Americans in many other zones of culture clash. One indication is Stefansson’s reluctance throughout his life to discuss his Inuit wife and son with even his closest friends.
At the time of Stefansson’s expeditions, most of the Inuit of the Western Arctic were outside, or at the margin of, the world system, hunting and gathering according to schedules more or less of their own. Through their arctic journeys at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Stefansson and his fellow travelers would expand the frontiers of Euro-American empires, paving the way for traders and colonialists. Despite Canadian dominion there was no urgency for decades to appropriate and control and, indeed, the Arctic remained isolated until the 1970s. Over time, however, the Inuit were encapsulated by southern empires which radically altered the terms of trade. With the expansion and enforcement of the Canadian state, the Inuit gradually became dependent on southern goods and permanent settlements, subject to civilizing missions and appropriation of land and resources. Inuit children were sent to boarding schools and English became the dominant language.
In recent years, historians and cultural critics have dissected the ideology and rhetoric of geographical explorations (Bloom 1993). With the works of Stefansson, I suggest, the Arctic Zone was established, if not invented, as a fertile but somewhat slippery discursive space, as a relatively demarcated and monotonous site useful for the exploration of particular themes in contrast to the temperate Euro-American world. Stefansson’s arctic practice and representation may be summed up by the notion of “arcticality” (Pálsson 2003). Much of his work characterizes the Arctic as both the home of howling, exotic wilderness (the source of “strange” knowledge and ancient wisdom) and a semi-domestic, “friendly” space. Although Stefansson showed little respect for other guests in the Arctic, criticizing them for introducing “civilization”, with all of its consequences, into the ethnographic museum of the Arctic, he was, after all, one of them, driven by projects different from those of his hosts and bound to “come out” at some point. Much like his fellow visitors he represented an empire that was busily modernizing at home and creating its own space abroad in competition with other empires for power and resources.
Acknowledgements:
The main arguments presented here have been developed in greater detail in my biographical work on Stefansson, Travelling Passions: The Hidden Life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson (2005, University of Manitoba Press and University Press of New England, 2005), and my article “Race and the Intimate in Arctic Exploration” (2004).
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