One Word, Many Worlds: The Multivocality of “Subsistence”

Autor(en)

Susanna Gartler

Abstrakt

In Alaska, subsistence is at the center stage of a political debate about resource use and management among different sectors of society. In the German-speaking area, subsistence denotes unpaid activities in general and usually refers to small-scale agriculture and/or care and house labor. Self-provision is emphasized as a central characteristic. In English, however, the term refers to general provision, and especially the ways of acquiring food, or to satisfy basic needs. By being employed in multivocal discussions, subsistence has become a homonym, meaning different things depending on where and how it is employed. Even so, the uses overlap and correlate: most of the time, subsistence refers to provision
by and for humans. Alaska Native ways of framing the term expand these notions to include animals and the immaterial world, making it a related albeit somewhat different concept. Such differences become apparent when comparing dissimilar uses and conceptualizations of the term. This article provides an overview of worldwide debates, a subject analysis of subsistence, and identifies four biases associated with the term: a gender, a spatial, an ethnic, and an economistic bias.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie

Journal

Alaska Journal of Anthropology

Band

16

Seiten

49

Anzahl der Seiten

63

Publikationsdatum

2018

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

605004 Kulturwissenschaft

Schlagwörter

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/0f9e713c-f483-476b-8bd5-d0816b756374