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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Dingman
locating oneself in a moral space out of which a whole and healthy self, community, and earth can
emerge.‖
To the extent that narrative has formally reentered the lexicon of knowledge making, even the
presupposition that scientific research is not communicated through narrative has been subverted
(Landau, 2001: 104). As one of many examples consider a 2013 panel that convened at Social Media
Week in New York City called ―Telling Stories with Scientists‖ (Nature, 2013). As panelists pointed
out, the lived life is woven together by a series of stories and the means of relating scientific data
must be meaningful in that context. The decisive point of the panel was to show how successful
communications of scientific data requires storytelling in order to make sense of research that is
incomprehensible to a lay audience. Anthropologist Misia Landau (2001: 117) even questions the
viability of communicating scientific research in a manner ―that does not involve storytelling.‖
Western Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge
But if we are to successfully navigate the future of the Arctic, we must build a bridge between the traditional
knowledge of the people who live there, and the new realities of the present.
- Address by Canadian Minister Leona Aglukkaq at Arctic Frontiers
Conference, January 21, 2013, Tromsø, Norway
As the Cold War was nearing an end, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1987, articulated the view that the
Arctic should emerge from the period of tensions as a ―zone of peace.‖ In the same speech he
affirmed that ―special attention‖ should be paid to ―the interests of the indigenous peoples of the
North‖ (as quoted in Axworthy, 2013). In 1991 the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy
(AEPS) was born, as a result of collaborative input from representatives of the circumpolar nations
and three indigenous peoples organizations – the Saami Council, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and
the Association of Indigenous Minorities of the North. This initiative led to the creation of the
Arctic Council in 1996 and included the AEPS representatives along with others.
At the same time,
polar scientists and Arctic indigenous peoples were seeking ways to build mutually
acceptable relationships, displacing former polar science research practices that did not take into
account indigenous ecological observation. Could such seemingly different groups find the means to
conduct collaborative research? To some it seemed that Western science and local indigenous
knowledge were divergent concepts: each spoke a different language; each came from a different
philosophical tradition; and neither seemed to have any use for the other‘s knowledge (Bielawski,
1992). In Canada, the government sought to correct this fundamental disparity and perhaps mutual
misinterpretation of one another‘s knowledge systems as a means of finding common ground for
the co-production of research, which in turn would facilitate better policy-making.
Yet, the terms of engagement were changing. Inuit had developed a new political ethos leading to
what I would call a ‗lived rebellion‘. Beyond formation of Inuit political organizations such as the
ICC and ITK in the 1970s, Inuit in Canada and Greenland had moved closer to self-government. In
Canada, discussions between ITK
4
and Ottawa starting in 1976 eventually resulted in the creation of
the Inuit self-governing territory of Nunavut in 1999.
5
In Denmark, the Home Rule Act of 1979