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Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT. The creation of the Nunavut government has been accompained by an emphasis on Inuit knowledge--Inuit Qdujimajatuqangit (IQ)--in the making of policy and in procedures affecting Nunavutmiut (Nunavummiut). Definitions of IQ parallel those of tradional ecological knowledge (TEK), indigenous knowledge (IK), and traditional knowledge (TK). The extent to which cosmologies and belief systems are incorporated into definitions of these terms and the extent to which their use is narrowly focused on the management of biological resources are ongoing sources of concern. The language used to define and promote IQ often serves to move IQ away from its cosmological implication and define it as a tool useful for filling gaps in scientific knowledge. To appreciate a seamless definition of IQ, a better understanding of Inuit social and cultural history is necessary. An examination of this history depicts IQ as a form of resistant practice that can seriously challenge characteristic assumptions of Western science, such as the separation of humans from other forms of life. Inuit operating with a seamless definition of IQ are, however, confronted with contemporary social, economic, and political realities that challenge and may limit the use of IQ in the management and development of Nunavut.
Key words: Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, culture. rights, Inuit social history, wildlife management, resistance, Nunavut government. Western science.
RESUME. Dans le cadre de la formation du gouvernement du Nunavut, l' accent a notamment ete mis sur les connaissances des Inuits (ou Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit--IQ) en matiere d' etablissement de politiques et de procedures touchant les Nunavutmiuts (Nunavummiuts). Les definitions de l' IQ sont parallels aux definitions relatives aux connaissances ecologiques traditionnelles (CET), aux connaissances indigenes (CI) et aux connaissances traditionnells (CT). La measure dans laquelle les cosmologies et les systems de croyances sont integres aux definitions de ces termes de meme que la measure dans laquelle leur utilisation est etroitement liee a la gestion des ressources biologiques sont constamment a la source de preoccupations, Souvent, les termes dont on se sert pour definir et promouvoir l' IQ ont pour effect d' eloigner l' IQ de ses incidences cosmologiques et de le definit comme outil utile pour combler les ecarts en matiers de connaissances scientifiques. A find' apprecier une definition continue de l' IQ, il faut mieux compredre l' histoire sociale et culturelle des Inuits. L' examen de cette histoire illustre que l' IQ est une forme de pratique de resistance qui peut serieusment contester les hypotheses caracteristiques de la science occidentale, telle que la separation des humains d' autres formes de vie Toutefois, les Inuits qui ont adopte une definition continue de l'IQ sont confrontes a des realites contemporaines d' ordre social, economique et politique qui contestent et peuvent meme restreindre l' utilisation de l'IQ dans la gestion et le developpement du Nunavut.
Mots cles: Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. culture drotis, histoire sociale des Inuits, gestion de la faune, resistance, gouvernement du Nunavut, science occidentale
Traduit pour la revue Arctic par Nicole Giguere.
INTRODUCTION
The attention paid to Inuit Qaujimajatuquangit (IQ) is not a recent phenomenon, although the Inukitut expression has a modern history. It was translated as "traditional Inuit knowledge" by Rebecca Mike, who was representing the office of the Interim Commissioner at a meeting of the Nunavut Social Development Council held in Igloolik, Nunavut Territory, in March 1998 The meeting was called to examine how a new Nunavut government would deal with Inuit culture in its operations. The seamlessness of the concept is found in the definition recorded at the time, as encompassing "all aspects of traditional Inuit culture including values, world-view, language, social organization, knowledge, life skills, perceptions, and expectations" (Anonymous, as reported in Wenzel, 2004:240) IQ has often been recognized as a "holistic" concept that includes spiritual as well as factual knowledge (Wenzel, 1999, 2004; Simpson, 2001; Huntington, 2005). The adjective "holistic" emphasizes the organic or functional relation between the parts of some thing and the whole. It has its origins in a decidedly Western way of thinking about subject matter: the notion that understanding the whole can be achieved by understanding the parts and how they fit and work together to produce something greater than the parts. "Seamless" may therefore be more appropriate than "holistic" in describing IQ. Some thing that is seamless has no discernable parts. In other words, everything is related to everything else in such a way that--counter to the logic of Western science--nothing can stand alone, even in the interest of gaining an appreciation of the whole. The Inuktitut word that best captures the concept is avaluqanngittuq 'that which has no circle or border around it.'
How does IQ relate to traditional knowledge (TK), the more generic term, indigenous knowledge (IK), and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), the latter focusing on aboriginal knowledge about the biophysical environment? Different issues arise, depending on how TK and IQ are defined. These include a perception that the use of the term "traditional" implies Inuit traditions (i.e., old knowledge) that, while interesting, may have a difficult time finding a place and role in modern Inuit society (Bell, 2002). This issue suggests the importance of language and contests over the use of language in defining IQ. Bell and others maintain that IQ is properly defined as "the Inuit way of doing things, and includes the past, present and future knowledge of Inuit society" (Bell, 2002:3; see also McCluskey, 2001; IQ Task Force, 2002 Simpson, 2004).
As traditional ecological knowledge, IQ has obvious relevance to biophysical concerns like climate change and game management. However, IQ as traditional knowledge, faces more notable challenges in relation to modern social processes, for example, in applying IQ to the built environment and institutions with which Inuit have virtually no historical experience (Tester 2006). Furthermore, IQ must confront values, as well as social and material relationships, that contrast sharply with the predominantly hunting culture of the Inuit the core of which, Brody (2000:299) maintains, is "individual egalitarianism." The transformations that have taken place in Inuit culture, social relations, and ways of making a living in the past 40 years are easily as dramatic as those of the industrial revolutions, documented by many, including Karl Polanyi in this classic, The Great Transformation (1944). The challenges posed to IQ by market relations and what Harvey (1989) identifies as "creative destruction," or the rapid technical and socials change characteristic of modern economies, are considerable. What is the relevance of IQ--however defined--to a modern Inuit society? In fact, these realities are reflected in how IQ is defined; narrowly, as a concept either useful to a more nuanced management and development of resources or important to cultural survival and resistance to dominant Western ideology.
This paper examines the historical and socio-cultural context within which IQ is located. We attempt to understand IQ in a broader socio-political context, characterized by various forms of resistance, the most common of which has been described as a "dragging of feet," covert rather than overt in its practice (Scott, 1985; Abu-Lughod, 1990; Kulchyski and Tester, 2007). Inuit resistance has never been overt; what has from time to time, characterized relations between the state and First Nations in southern Canada, is covert resistance. This "dragging of feet" can take two forms: advancing IQ as deserving of serious attention by virtue of claims found within Western European notions of rights and liberal democratic politics, and advancing a seamless definition of IQ that includes notions about human relations to nature that challenge Western Enlightenment logic. The struggle relevant to defining and using IQ is over the appropriation of IQ as a management tool or its articulation as a challenge to Western notions of progress and development. The suggestion made by Huntington (2005) that TK or IQ be considered and used as "traditional ecological knowledge" or "traditional cultural knowledge," depending on the context, is illustrative of what happens to a seamless definition when attempts are made to avoid the complexities and challenges posed by linking factual with spiritual or cosmological aspects of IQ. As used by the Nunavut government, and as illustrated later in the text, IQ can be both empowering of Inuit and Inuit culture--as in its incorporation into the Nunavut Wildlife Act--or co-opting (for example, a reference to IQ made by a Nanavut Minister of Finance in one of his budget statements). Simailak (2006:4), cited later in the text, noted that removing barriers to business activity was consistent with Inuit traditional knowledge, a claim suggesting that IQ could be used to justify policies that had little or no relevance to traditional Inuit culture.
Contests between cultures over language and definitions are critical. The outcomes determine how reality is to be constructed and, more importantly, what human interactions with the environment will be permitted. Will the language of science prevail, or that of moral philosophy and cultural survival? As Morrow and Hensel (1992:46) ask in the case of Yup'ik struggles over terms relevant to custom, tradition, and regulation, will "subsistence rights that are saved by science.. include what Alaka Native people want most to preserve: subsistence as a way of relating to the world and as an important component of identity"?
IQ AS ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE, OR AS CULTURAL WISDOM
The definition provided by Rebecca Mike, and elaborated by others, is controversial. The focus is on culture: information that includes knowledge about animals and non-living forms is only one item in a list that has profoundly social and spiritual content (see, for example, Usher, 2000 and Simpson, 2004). This seamless definition contrasts with what has become a narrower definition implied through practice: namely, that IQ is predominantly biophysical information relevant to co-management boards such as the Nunavut Water Board and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, which is concerned primarily with biological resources. Although the Nunavut Impact Review Board is concerned with social as well as biophysical and economic impacts, it has not given as much attention to social and cultural issues. Making IQ an integral part of the Nunavut government, including how government is conceptualized and operates, is a formidable challenge that can be made easier by defining IQ in a manner compatible with Western science and logic.
A narrow focus on Inuit environmental knowledge is a recent development in the history of an interest in Inuit culture that typically has involved the historical (and contemporary) enquiries of anthropologists and other social scientists. This focus parallels what has happened to IK elsewhere since the 1970s, with increasing emphasis on private-sector (rather than state-led) initiatives related to intensifying domestic and global resource development. In the Canadian Arctic, the energy crisis of the early 1970s generated a new interest in, and controversy about, northern oil and gas reserves. The logic of northern development suggested, even to some Qablunaat (Qallunaat) writers, that the cultural logic of Western civilization in relation to other species and the biosphere was fundamentally flawed. Livingston (1981:128) referred to this flaw as "speciesism," defined as "a prejudice or attitude of bias toward the interests of one's own species and against those of members of another species" that allows other living things to be seen as "resources." (Note that we have used Qablunaat, a term used in the Kivalliq region, to refer to people who are not Inuit, although Qallunaat is more commonly used in the Baffin region.)
These developments were accompanied by reduced government emphasis on social and cultural concerns. In the West, for complex social and political reasons, these reduced...
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