Canada's Indigenous Food Traditions By Selena Randhaw Article Analysis

In my opinion, the article, “Animal Rights Activists and Inuit Clash Over Canada’s Indigenous Food Traditions” by Selena Randhawa, is a text that demonstrates ‘Othering’ within its discourse as the “view or treatment of a group as intrinsically lesser.” The article creates this atmosphere of marginalization—specifically toward the cultural values and opinions of the Inuit as a collective group—through both the nature of its overall subject matter and through the author’s use of particular “power terms.”
For instance, by describing the on-going conflict between Canadian animal rights activists and the Inuit over their seal hunting subsistence practices, the article’s subject matter highlights activists’ frequent attempts to supersede traditional …show more content…
Initially, the article seems to be objective in its exploration of all sides of the issue. For instance, it relays both the perspectives of the animal rights activists and the Inuit with direct quotations from each group, and gives rational, historical background to contextualize seal hunting in Canada. However, throughout the article, readers could construe some of the injections made by Randhawa as providing greater power to the animal rights activists. One such example is in the opening paragraphs of the article in which Randhawa asserts that “the work of such activist organizations (such as the one attacking “Kū-kŭm Kitchen”) is crucial in educating the general public […].” The use of this term— ‘crucial’—possibly intends to mobilize readers toward support of activist’s views by communicating that they, unlike opposing Inuit values are “critical in (their) functions and of (greater) importance.” So, through their language, Randhawa perpetuates ‘Othering’ by allowing for the construction of underlying “prejudice” in favour of the animal rights activists, despite outward attempts to remain