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Belligerent Legends: Bickering and Feuding among Outport Octogenarians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Donna Lee Davis
Donna Lee Davis
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, Anthropology Program, Department of Social Behavior, University of South Dakota, 414 East Clark Street, Vermillion, SD 57069, U.S.A.
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Abstract

In a southwest coast Newfoundland fishing village elderly outporters are accorded special licence to behave in ways considered inappropriate for younger generations. Capitalising on their status as folk heroes and heroines of traditional outport culture, older people challenge each other to redress old wrongs or actively create new issues for dispute. The entire family may reluctantly become involved in these imbroglios. This case study of a land feud between an elderly woman and man demonstrates how aggression is mediated by the structural confines of local sex roles and outport egalitarianism, which severely limit the potential of octogenarians' altercations to disrupt village life.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , December 1985 , pp. 431 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

NOTES

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