"You don't have to be big; you just have to be able to stand up on your own": the Inuit experience of business development
When Inuit of the Canadian Arctic started moving into settlements in the 1950s & 60s, they confronted vast changes in their ways of life. One change involved how they earned their livelihoods. With an economy based on subsistence production Inuit became quickly incorporated into the market economy and confronted their growing need for money. But how were they to get it? One approach has been through the development of private enterprise. It is this process of becoming entrepreneurs that is the focus of this research.
Such development is not without challenges. Inuit businesspeople must continue to function within the social economy that has sustained them until relatively recently. At the root of their economy is the notion that the essentials of life should be shared amongst people whenever possible. Inuit have depended upon one another for their survival, with the sharing of resources helping them to overcome life's uncertainties. This is why the social economy is so important to Inuit and is preserved at all costs: the value of social relations far exceeds other values.
Inuit entrepreneurs must confront various pressures from community members. Amongst other things, they must deal with people's reactions to Inuit selling to one another rather than sharing, and they must confront how to reconcile the individual self-interest that comes with money with community expectations that goods should be shared. This research focuses on the experience of Inuit entrepreneurs in Nunavik as they have moved from a subsistence economy to a market economy.