The Coast Salish Economy of Affection

Dara Kelly's thesis, "Feed the people and you will never go hungry: Illuminating Coast Salish economy of affection" explores the traditional and contemporary Coast Salish economic foundations and practices, particularly through the institution of gathering ceremonies. However, Kelly also considers the impact of colonial interventions, such as the Potlatch Ban and the Indian Act, as they perpetuated the economy of exploitation and significantly constrained the flourishing of the Coast Salish economy of affection.

The whirlpool of conflicting tidal currents has been swirling for Coast Salish for what feels like a long time. The appearance of conflict suggests that where currents clash, discordance results. However, in the case of a whirlpool, where competing energy merges together, a great structural force is produced anew where neither current dominates, yet both are interdependent and intertwined to sustain the whirlpool structure. Without one another, each current would continue to flow independently and neither is lost without the other. But when forced together, the interplay of water energy creates a structure of potentiality that neither can achieve alone. This dynamic whirlpool energy represents the structure by which both Coast Salish economy of affection and economy of exploitation must find synergy toward mutual development objectives to guarantee Coast Salish people not only survive, but thrive in the future.

To illustrate her research, Kelly draws on many metaphors throughout her work. The whirlpool methodology is drawn on to demonstrate Kelly's insistence to dive into the whirlpool and allow for her three different methodologies, oral history, auto-ethnography, and heuristic inquiry to intermingle. As suggested by Kelly's description above, the whirlpool is also symbolic of both the opportunities and dangers it presents. There is certainly a risk in entering the whirlpool, but that risk may also bring about fundamental changes in restoring the balance between the economy of affection and economy of exploitation. As Kelly explains, the whirlpool represents various balanced motions: in and out, up and down, chaos and order, and the sense of both seen and unseen worlds. Currently, the economy of exploitation overwhelms the whirlpool but by prioritizing Coast Salish economic development, there is an important opportunity to equalize the imbalanced dynamic of the currents.

The above image represents Kelly's whirlpool methodology. After conducting an heuristic inquiry and uncovering the limitations of the information contained in the archives and historical date, Kelly decided to hold qualitative interviews to obtain further information on gatherings. Kelly engages with two different types of oral history throughout her research: interviews and sqwélqwel (transmitting ancient cultural knowledge through gathering ceremonies). Autoethnography as a methodology relates to a "systematic recording of the processes of the research within which [Kelly's] own genealogy and community shape opportunities to engage personally with gatherings as a phenomena." Fundamentally, within the whirlpool methodology, the three approaches interact and feed into one another in an iterative manner to truly elucidate the nature of the Coast Salish economy.

In another sense, the whirlpool metaphor helps explain the interrelated nature of xwélmexw-xwélmexw (exchange in gatherings between people): gifts and giving; debt; banking, insurance; and saving. These various forms of exchange in Coast Salish gatherings are explored further in the blogpost titled, "Coast Salish concepts of exchange."