Teenagers of the tundra : the teenage experience among the Naskapi of Kawawachikamach, Quebec

Orchard, Treena (1998) Teenagers of the tundra : the teenage experience among the Naskapi of Kawawachikamach, Quebec. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The teenage years. This period of physiological and social change is perhaps one of the most fascinating and misunderstood phases in our life cycle. It is even more complex when we consider the effects of the introduction of this stage into a culture which previously had its own unique category of youth. This thesis examines such a development as it exists among the Naskapi people of Kawawachikamach, Quebec. -- Many studies dealing with aboriginal teens contend that these young people are currently experiencing an "identity crisis", or that they are "between two worlds" (i.e. Native and White), ideas which are couched within Western theoretical perspectives of the adolescent identity. However, the situation among the Naskapi involves more than two competing cultural influences or individual struggles for identity. The phase of Naskapi adolescence itself has changed, as witnessed by the introduction of the 'teenage' stage. However, there are culturally specific factors at play which can account for how adolescence is experienced among the Naskapi, and why they do not go through an identity crisis as the adolescent is seen to do in Western models. As I will show, it is the complex interplay between the newly emerging social category of the 'teenager' and the challenge it represents to traditional Naskapi age-grade systems and social roles which act to produce the cultural tensions which exist among this group.

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