Walled-In : Arctic Housing and a Sociology of Walls

Walls profoundly shape the spaces we live in and the places we move through. They impinge on our everyday lives, entangling power relations, identity, and hierarchies. Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott examines this phenomenon in the context of housing in Arviat, Nunavut. Inuit in Arviat, Arviammiut, have only been living in permanent housing since the late 1950s and early 1960s. Van den Scott’s ethnography of the contemporary lived experience of Arviammiut within their houses acknowledges colonial power relations within the very walls of their houses; an uncomfortable living arrangement, which Arviammiut navigate in resilient and heterogeneous ways. Having lived in Arviat for five years, van den Scott finds that the walls represent a Western presence in Arviammiut lives. In essence, Arviammiut are living in a foreign space which reflects as well as impacts their experiences. Walls have profoundly changed Inuit life; however, Inuit also exercise agency in how they form relationships with those walls. Van den Scott lays out the social processes inherent to their experience, such as spatial fusion, the process of symbolically connecting separate interior spaces. In doing so, she argues that walls are boundary objects, cultural objects, and technological objects. Essentially, she introduces a sociology of walls.