Rebuilding relations and countering erasure through community-driven and owned science: A key tool to Inuit self-determination and social transformations

Abstract

This article explores the meaning of community-driven and owned science in the context of an Inuit-led land-based program, the Young Hunters Program. It is the foundational program of the Arviat Aqqiumavvik Society, situated in Nunavut, Canada, a community-led group dedicated to researching challenges to community wellness and designing and delivering programs to help address those challenges. We show how the program emerged locally and blends Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) with tools of western science in respectful ways given its core sits within and emerges from what Inuit have always known to be true. We offer a description of six dimensions inherent in Inuit cultural practices and beliefs and foundational to the program activities and show how they open up various learning trajectories and possibilities for the involved young people to engage in community science. We then discuss in what ways the revitalization of IKS and practices led to community science projects that were locally meaningful and empowering with important implications for scientific work that mattered in light of locally experienced and devastating climate change threats. The study speaks to the importance of rebuilding relations and decolonizing knowledge systems and science practices, two key tools to Inuit self-determination and social transformations, and essential to achieving more social justice and equity in and beyond community science.