Negotiating Personal Autonomy

Examining verbal and non-verbal communication in interpersonal encounters, Elixhauser argues that social life in East Greenland is characterized by relationships based upon careful respect of personal autonomy. She asserts that a person in East Greenland is a highly permeable entity that is neither bounded by the body nor even necessarily human. In so doing, she also puts forward a new a new approach to the anthropological study of communication. The book will be of interest to scholars of the Arctic, Greenland, anthropology, and human geography. Its analysis of the self in East Greenland will be of interest to scholars working on the self across the humanities and social sciences.