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  • Muskox multiplications: the...
    Andersen, Astrid Oberborbeck

    Acta borealia, 01/2022, Letnik: 39, Številka: 1
    Journal Article

    In the mid-1960s, 27 muskoxen were translocated from Northeast Greenland to Tatsip Ataa near Kangerlussuaq in West Greenland. In just a few decades, these 27 individuals reproduced to become a population of many thousand - now the largest population of muskoxen in Greenland. This article examines human-muskox relations in present-day Kangerlussuaq and Greenland as biosocial multiplications. Muskox-human encounters shape muskoxen as well as human sociality in Kangerlussuaq, and - ultimately - they take part in the shaping of Kangerlussuaq as a place. The article ethnographically unfolds the processes through which muskoxen and humans shape each other and multiply. Diverse relations, meanings, and values come out of muskox-human encounters, and only some result in the muskox becoming a resource, understood as an element that can be utilized in a rational way, where the outcome can be measured in a specific (economic) value. Some of the meanings and values embedded in muskox-human encounters and the relations that come out of them overlap with the notion of resource, while others exceed it. Understanding how muskoxen become a resource, and how they do not, is crucial when wanting to understand human-muskox relations and to manage muskoxen sustainably.