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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Communicating Climate Change
other. These ―great systems of knowledge‖ led to domination of others who did not subscribe or fit
into the dominant structures of society (Foucault, 2000: 291). Thus, in Western society we
―indirectly constituted ourselves through the exclusion of some others‖ (Foucault, 2000: 403). The
politics of exclusion and meta-narrative that provided the normative context in which Western
society operated plainly did not represent the cultural norms of others.
In contrast, for Arctic indigenous peoples, the customary practice of storytelling established
narrative as fundamental to knowledge creation. Known as Traditional Knowledge, it is broadly
defined as a ―shared, collective body of knowledge incorporating environmental, cultural and social
elements‖ (
Beaufort Sea Partnership
).
3
Transmitted orally, TK is passed down through the generations
and constitutes a cultural identity through which community members exchange intimate knowledge
of the land and the sea. It can be seen as a means of understanding a changing environment and
adapting community practices to meet current conditions (Sakakibara, 2008: 462).
TK helps to
explain various aspects of the environment through which community members can make sense of
the whole. Some have referred to this as the knowledge-practice-belief complex, where practice is
the ―essence of indigenous Knowledge‖ (Lejano, n.d.: 4).
Specific to indigenous knowledge associated with the environment, the term Traditional Ecological
Knowledge (TEK) expresses the relationship between community members with that of the natural
environment. According to Huntington (1998, as cited in Huntington, 2002: 64), TEK ―is a way of
organizing one‘s understanding of the natural world, and as such it includes spiritual aspects of the
proper relationship between humans and their environment.‖
Indeed, TK and TEK should be seen as a means of capturing the essence of all human life in
relationship to the environment. For it is the personal narrative that documents the fabric of our
lives, constructing context that grand narratives omit. Accordingly, TK ―offers a view of the world,
aspirations, and an avenue to ‗truth‘, different from those held by non-Aboriginal people whose
knowledge is based largely on European philosophies‖ (Department of Culture and
Communications, Government of the Northwest Territories as cited in Bielawski, 1991: 11).
Consider the perspective of Zacharias Kunuk, a Canadian Inuk filmmaker and co-founder of Isuma
Productions who built a career based on narrative as a means of spreading ideas based in TK
(discussed further below). Similar to most Inuit children of Kunuk‘s generation, the government
compelled, and even coerced, Inuit parents to send their children to English-speaking schools run by
the federal government. He was indoctrinated into Western thought, through media such as John
Wayne movies depicting U.S. soldiers in battle with the ―Indians.‖ But, Kunuk says, ―When I began
to see myself as an Aboriginal person and a filmmaker I learnt there are different ways to tell the
same story‖ (
Isuma,
The art). With the founding of Isuma.TV, Kunuk says, ―we want to show how
our ancestors survived by the strength of their community and their wits, and how new ways of
storytelling today can help our community survive another thousand years‖ (
Isuma
, About us).
Such views are echoed by Jim Cheney (2001: 337), an environmental philosopher, who regards
narrative as an attribute grounded in geography, the place we call home, illustrating a shift in the
perceptions of western science. The ―contextualized narrative [can be understood] as the means for