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

Author(s)

Susanna Gartler

Abstract

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(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

Alaska Journal of Anthropology

Volume

16

Pages

49

No. of pages

63

Publication date

2018

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

605004 Cultural studies

Keywords

Portal url

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