The Construction of Identity Among Inuit Men in Ottawa Through Foodways

This thesis uses ethnographic data provided by young Inuit men in Ottawa to understand how individuals mobilise their foodways in the process of self-fashioning. The role of food in constructing subjectivities is well known (eg Mead 1943, Julier & Linderfeld 2005). How those foodway generated subjective identities are used to negotiate and contend with objective structures of power is less well known. The thesis illustrates how Inuit individuals in urban areas of Canada mobilise food in the process of self-formation and how that impacts the way in which they navigate the objective power structures of Southern Canada, and will help to contextualize food issues among urban Inuit. It addresses how the participants confront structures of power and co-opt or resist those structures. The participants used their food to negotiate their identity and confront power in Ottawa in ways which were unexpected and not previously addressed by the literature.