Abstract
The idea that Inuit hunt primarily for calories and physical survival remains one of the most enduring narratives about the Arctic. Another familiar narrative centres on souls and the belief that animals never truly die, but instead reincarnate when treated properly by humans. While neither of these understandings is entirely misplaced, both tend to frame Inuit hunting through rather utilitarian or essentialist lenses, making it difficult to account for the complexities of contemporary Anthropocene land- and seascapes.

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research conducted across different regions of Greenland, this presentation explores how taste (the taste of animals, of places, and of seasons) can be understood as a form of infrastructure through which hunters and their families navigate, experience, and make sense of both landscapes and the animals they hunt. Attending to taste in this way opens up new perspectives on how human–animal relations are shaped and continually reconfigured amid changing environmental and political conditions, including thinning sea ice, declining wildlife stocks, pollution, and increasingly regulated hunting.

Bio
Janne Flora is associate professor at the department of anthropology at Aarhus University and centre leader at AUNA: Centre for North Atlantic and Arctic Research. She has carried out research in Greenland for more than two decades, in recent years on questions relating to human-aninmal relations in hunting communities.