Editing Voices of Thunder

=Point of beginning=

=Abstract=

=Introduction=

This manuscript/cut and its related work emerges from five years of ongoing conversations between representatives of the Gjoa Haven’s Hunters and Trappers Association (HTA) in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut (figure 1) and Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario researchers. It is based on a series of community-based workshops conducted in the summer of 2019 for a ‘Genome Canada’ sponsored large-scale polar bear monitoring project entitled “BEARWATCH: Monitoring Impacts of Arctic Climate Change using Polar Bears, Genomics and Traditional Ecological Knowledge” – hereafter, simply, BW.

[[File:(color) Figure 1 Map of the MC PBMU..jpg|thumb|Map of the M’Clintock Channel Polar Bear Management Unit area (Vongraven and Peacock, 2011). Adapted with permission to include the locations of Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak, who each hunt within this area.]]

Several Inuit communities across Inuit Nunangat (homeland of Inuit of Canada’, ITK, 2018)  have collaborated with the BW project to combine Inuit Knowledge with western science in developing a community-based, non-invasive, genomics-based toolkit for the monitoring and management of polar bears. One of these collaborating communities is Gjoa Haven, whose Hunters and Trappers Association (HTA) representatives have a research relationship with BW co-PI Peter Van Coeverden De Groot that has stretched across more than 20 years. Over the years, one issue that was brought up repeatedly by Gjoa Haven HTA representatives and other community members, concerned the effects of severe polar bear hunting quota reductions introduced to the community in 2001. 

The M’Clintock Channel (MC) Polar Bear Management Unit (PBMU) used by hunters from Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak (see figure 1), was in 2001 subjected to a three-year polar bear moratorium (a full suspension of hunting). In 2005, the moratorium was lifted and Gjoa Haven and Cambridge Bay signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) for alternating quotas of one and two tags per year, while Taloyoak did not sign the MOU at all, and therefore did not receive any tags from the MC management unit between 2001 and 2015. Both Taloyoak and Cambridge Bay- unlike the residents of Gjoa Haven- however, also have traditional hunting grounds outside of the MC PBMU. So, when the quota in MC PBMU was significantly reduced from an average of 33 bears annually before 2000 (US FWS, 2001), to only 3 bears annually (NWMB, 2005), the community of Gjoa Haven was disproportionately impacted. No other community in Nunavut or the Northwest Territories has experienced such a (near) moratorium over such an extended period of time. Despite a more recent rise in tags in 2022, these impacts continue to be felt today. Hunting polar bears is an important part of Inuit culture. It facilitates inter-generational knowledge transmission of on-the-land skills, and provides a significant source of income within Inuit mixed-economies (Dowsley, 2008; Wenzel, 2011). After two generations of hardly being able to hunt polar bears, Gjoa Haven hunters still seek recognition for the impacts such quota-decisions have had in terms of lost income, loss of culture, and loss of intergenerational knowledge transfer. 

This work invites you to accept testimony to these ongoing impacts of such severe quota reductions through the recorded experiences of Gjoa Haven hunters and other community members. Such accepting testimony, however, isn’t limited to a ‘passive reading’ of the quota impacts on the community. You are instead invited to explore your own positioning- as a reader, a scientist, and collaborative meaning-maker responsively, alongside several other agential forces. What does it mean to ethically engage with these narratives? What responsibilities do we bear as readers? How are we implicated? What does it mean in the thick moment/um of reconciliation to share or accept testimony in accordance with the guiding principles of the [[Ethical Space of Engagement]] (Ermine, 2007)?

'''''Text will be added here - see google doc'''''


=<span id="purveyor of voices"></span>From purveying voices towards accepting testimony.=

In the summer of 2019, two [[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning#Workshops Summer 2019|workshops]] were co-organized to discuss and document testimonies on the multiple impacts of the polar bear quota reductions on Gjoa Haven hunters and other community members. The recordings of these workshops and its accompanying notes became the primary materials which were transferred to me, as a new PhD student on the BW project in 2020, to be described in an academic publication, and presented to a larger academic audience.

As a researcher who had not yet set foot in the community of Gjoa Haven, such an "assignment" made me feel uneasy; Who was I to write an academic paper that conveyed the lived experiences of people who I had never even met? Viewing the writing on such a sensitive topic as polar bear quota reductions, as a mere descriptive practice- disconnected from the wider research landscape within which they emerged- did not only strike me as unethical, it also seemed impossible. It is hard to separate the practices of a research project like BW, that is directly focussed on the methodologies of polar bear monitoring, from the subject of harvest quota- considering that quotas are set, at least partially, based on the insights derived from such monitoring efforts. As such, it seemed necessary to renegotiate my contributions in a way that provided for caution and with a sensitivity to how the BW project, and its non-Inuit researchers, are entangled with the larger legacy of scientific polar bear monitoring surveys and management processes that contributed to the impacts as shared in the workshop. Most crucial to such an approach became the extended conversations between the Gjoa Haven HTA representatives, myself and university-based BW PI’s. 


'''Staying with the trouble: [[Politics of recognition]]'''


==Ongoing conversations==

The choice to continue close collaboration between Gjoa Haven representatives and BW researchers, was crucial to a research approach that sought to ethically engage with the experiences that were shared in the impact workshops of 2019. Not only to decide on how to process, interpret and present the workshop recordings, but also to discuss the purposes to which the community had requested the workshops in the first place- and to navigate what role university-based researchers should, or could, play in achieving such purposes?

We arranged a total of five separate meetings between the Gjoa Haven HTA, myself, and multiple BW PI’s- each lasting about three hours to navigate a collective decision making on how to proceed with sharing these narratives. Due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic the first three of these meetings- and my introduction to the HTA-board- took place by remote conference phonecalls in 2020. Although these calls were not pre-structured or accompanied by an agenda, we did turn to a series of critical questions suggested by Linda Tuhawali Smith (1999) to guide us in our conversations; “What research do we want to do? Who is it for? What difference will it make? Who will carry it out? How do we want the research done? How will we know it is worthwhile? Who will own the research? Who will benefit?” Among multiple other insights, this led to a clear articulation of the main objective of Gjoa Haven HTA representatives for publishing the experiences shared in the workshops- collectively formulated as follows;

''‘We want our “voices of thunder” to echo everywhere. We want everyone to know what happened to us. We seek acknowledgment and apologies for suffering the consequences of the quota regulations; a loss of culture and knowledge, as well as increased danger due to the rising number of polar bears around our communities. Inuit knowledge in terms of accuracy and inherent value needs to be recognized and better acknowledged. We want better integration of Inuit knowledge in survey research, like for example accounting for seasonal changes. Scientific monitoring surveys have limitations, we ask that researchers will recognize and take Inuit observations more seriously’.''

The Gjoa Haven HTA seeks recognition. The kind of recognition that they seek is however multifaceted. Beyond acknowledgement and apologies for the quota reduction impacts, the Gjoa Haven HTA also seeks validation, and better “integration” of their knowledge in research and management. The Gjoa Haven board also speak of wanting to have their voices of thunder “echo everywhere” - a vision of broad dissemination that extends beyond the scientific community, towards other Nunavut communities and wider Canadian society. Academic publishing alone will likely not achieve this. To more completely pursue such desired forms of wide recognition, we realized that additional avenues of knowledge creation were needed in parallel to academic publishing. We subsequently co-created multiple audio/visual [[#output|outputs]] that are better suited for broad dissemination through publicly accessible venues like social media, and internet, while we planned to co-produce one-pager communications that are more suitable for political advocacy.

The other outcome of our ongoing conversations is that it allowed for our collaborative work to better present Gjoa Haven’s voices and objectives, without the academic partners speaking for them. Instead of reproducing yet another damage-centered study that portrays an Indigenous community primarily as ‘broken, emptied, or flattened’ (Tuck, 2009), or the social scientists as an invisible and elevated ‘purveyor of voices’ for those that are suggested to be “voiceless” (Spivak, 1988 ; Simpson, 2007; Tuck and Yang, 2014)- we could explore how exactly each of our voices could be appropriately leveraged within different knowledge products.

'''[[Conference calls from the road|Invitation]]:Trail-off for the material realities of working and writing from the road during fall 2020 during covid-19'''

==Multiple voices==

What initially was intended to be a unilateral descriptive (re)presentation of the recorded impacts of quota reductions as experienced by Gjoa Haven community members, slowly emerged to become a multi-vocal, co-creative process of engaging with these testimonies in ways that have been described as transformative to the relationship between some of the Gjoa Haven HTA representatives and the academic partners of BW. 

Across the summer of 2021, and spring 2022, we arranged for an eight-week period of in-person co-creation and conversations in Gjoa Haven on how to proceed in sharing Gjoa Haven’s “Voices of Thunder”. During these periods, we discussed potential knowledge outputs and forms of writing- or otherwise- presenting the experiences shared in the workshops. We constructed narrative sequences and in 2021 we also started to co-produce on of our three main knowledge outputs; the motion graphic documentary In 2022, we reviewed versions of our academic paper, reconfirmed the meaning of several of the statements that were quoted in the workshop recordings through additional conversation, and we screened edited versions of several videos we had co-produced prior. Part of these processes, was to navigate the position of the academic scientists in ‘telling’ the story of quota reduction impacts for the community.

In each of our co-created research outputs, respectively i) a 20 minute co-created motion graphic documentary, ii) an academic publication, and iii) a webpage, the academic scientists of BearWatch and the community-members of Gjoa Haven are positioned differently. The academic partners always present themselves as explicitly visible actors, distinctly differently positioned from their Gjoa Haven partners, but not as detached on the one hand, or as ‘ventriloquists’ of the community of Gjoa Haven, on the other hand (see Spivak 2010, p. 27). Taking our cues from Jones and Jenkins (2008), we conduct a ‘negotiation of voice’- we make explicit who speaks, and how our collaborative authorship is navigated. To clarify which of our respective voices are present as this cut unfolds, I will state who ‘we’ refers to in each narrative output. The voices shift, for example, between ‘we’, as I use it here, which includes Gjoa Haven community representatives and the academic partners of the BW project, towards ‘we’ as it is applied within the motion graphic documentary, where it refers to Gjoa Haven’s hunters, community-members and HTA project partners exclusively. In parts of the academic paper, on the other hand, ‘we’ refers to the voices of academic research partners of the BW project only. Such visible differentiation and shifting of voices, both eliminates the impression that this paper addresses phenomena that are completely disconnected from the position of the BW scientists, while it also seeks to avoid speaking from one harmonized voice. Based on the tension of our differences, rather than attempting to erase them, we have sought to create multiple sites of enunciation, while maintaining a pragmatic collaboration across them. 

For example, in the motion graphic documentary, the experiences shared by the workshop participants speak for themselves, through the voices of Gjoa Haven community members. In the academic paper, on the other hand, the voices of the BW scientists are more prominently present. Not through the employment of theoretical frameworks and methodological analysis to translate, validate or otherwise explain the experiences shared by Gjoa Haven’s HTA representatives, hunters and community members, but rather by conducting a direct, ‘unromantic’, (sensu Jones and Jenkins, 2008) “testimonial reading”, as further elaborated on in section 1.3. A ‘testimonial reading’ facilitates an engagement with the experiences of Gjoa Haven’s community members that asks the reader to move beyond passive empathy towards an acceptance of testimony that requires bearing responsibility; it asks the reader to commit - to rethink their assumptions, to challenge the comfortable concept of being a ‘distant’ other, and to recognize the power-relationships between the reader and the testimonial text (Boler, 1997). By conducting such a testimonial reading of the experiences shared by Gjoa Haven community members, we can both engage with the experiences shared in the workshop, ànd the appeal of the Gjoa Haven HTA for wider recognition, in a way that aligns with the principles of Ethical Space of Engagement (Ermine, 2007).

==Testimonial reading==

Terms like ‘testimony’ or ‘witnessing’ are ideologically and politically loaded, and may mean different things within different contexts. To ‘witness’, when considered in the context of this cross-cultural research collaboration, doesn’t take up the western legal definition of being an (eye)witness as it would in the context of a legal court. It rather takes up meaning that aligns more with Indigenous traditions of witnessing, in the way it was applied in the public fora of Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Committee hearings, for example. Witnessing, as defined in schedule N and later on the TRC website (TRC.ca), is to take responsibility for ‘accepting testimony’ on historical events, even if one hasn’t directly experienced these events themselves.This form of witnessing is active. It is not merely listening. To witness, is to enter into a very specific and powerful relationship between witness and storyteller (Nock in Gaertner, 2016 p.138). This form of witnessing is particularly important to Indigenous cultures that use oral traditions. “Oral traditions form the foundation of Aboriginal societies, connecting speaker and listener in communal experience and uniting past and present in memory.” They are “the means by which knowledge is reproduced, preserved and conveyed from generation to generation” (Hulan & Eigenbrod in Gaertner, 2016 p.139). In other words, accepting testimony comes with responsibilities. Whether these are responsibilities to remember, or a commitment to take forward, teach others and spread the word- accepting testimony is not a passive act, nor a one-time event. 

This act of witnessing and giving testimony between Inuit community members and non-Inuit BW researchers begins, in the case of our research, when BW researchers acted in response to the issue of quota reductions, as raised by their Gjoa Haven partners. By resourcing, planning, and co-designing two workshops with Gjoa Haven HTA representatives to take place in the community, the space was created to engage in the kind of attentive listening that is needed to meaningfully accept testimony; the kind of listening that changes you, and connects you to the speaker. The recording and documenting of the process could be understood as another part of accepting testimony; the commitment to “take forward” and “spread the word”. There are however tensions involved with these latter practices when it comes to the cross-cultural partnership of the BW project. Primarily the fact that these understandings of accepting testimony derive from Indigenous traditions, and that, as explained above, there are risks and power dynamics at play when western, non-Indigenous researchers take on the responsibility of sharing Indigenous testimonies in academic publications- for academic audiences. Different forms of knowledge outputs, presence of voices, and anticipated “listeners” require different approaches to accepting testimony. For the academic publication, the BW researchers have chosen to accept testimony by conducting a ‘testimonial reading’. 

Megan Boler (Boler, 1997, p.255), who named the method of ‘testimonial reading’, places the act of taking responsibility central in her work on reading testimony. She wrote; ‘’While empathy may inspire action in particular lived contexts (…) I am not convinced that empathy leads to anything close to justice, (or) to any shift in existing power relations’’. To shift such relations, ‘’one must recognize oneself as implicated in the social forces that create the climate of obstacles the other must confront’’ (ibid, p. 257). Suggesting a practice of accepting testimony by which a reader or listener places themselves as implicated with the events one accepts testimony for, aligns with some of the guiding principles for reconciliation as put forward by the TRC (TRC, 2015c p. 113). These principles consider reconciliation as an opportunity to practice an ‘awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour’ (ibid). In other words ‘The TRC (...) puts responsibility for change squarely on the shoulders of all Canadians’ (McGregor, 2018 p.823 emphasis mine)- not just the Indigenous people who take up responsibility for sharing their experiences publicly. 

To conduct a testimonial reading of the impact of quota reductions, as shared by Gjoa Haven community members, thus requires the academic partners of BW to assess how they themselves are entangled with the institutional apparatus that has facilitated the lack of recognition and the impacts to which Gjoa Haven’s testimonies speak. The method of testimonial reading, as such, deliberately prevents engaging with Gjoa Haven’s experiences without also asking questions about responsibility between speaker and listener. Not only does this make it possible to redirect from writing a “damage-centred” narrative that speaks “for” the community of Gjoa Haven, towards one that draws attention to the colonial legacies and structures that have caused those impacts- it also provides direction for other academic “listeners” to accept testimony of Gjoa Haven’s experiences in appropriate ways.

=<span id="output"></span>Voices of Thunder; Testimonies of polar bear quota reduction impacts in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut=

The knowledge outputs shared here have emerged from the ongoing conversations and agreements between the Gjoa Haven HTA representatives and BW scientists, as described above. You can choose to directly engage with any of them on this page, or you can click the links below to trace the collaborative processes that have lead to each of those final outputs.  

==<span id="videoVoT"></span>Voices of Thunder Animated Graphic Documentary==

"Voices of Thunder" is a [[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary|community-created]], animated graphic documentary, in which Inuit hunters and elders from the community of Gjoa Haven share how they have been impacted by polar bear management policies in their region over the past two decades.

This animated graphic documentary resulted from workshops conducted in Gjoa Haven over the summer of 2019. In these workshops, Gjoa Haven hunters, elders and a number of individuals from outside of the community shared their experiences on the impacts of severe polar bear quota reductions, implemented between 2001 and 2015 in the Polar Bear Management Unit of M’Clintock Channel (MC) with each other and with several scientists of the Genome Canada BearWatch project. After these workshops, a narrative script was co-created by the BearWatch scientists, Gjoa Haven HTA representatives and several community members, that brought together interpreted quotes from the workshops, with archival materials and academic publications.  

The choice to add documentation on polar bear quota setting in the MC PBMU, from for example NWMB archives, academic literature, newspaper articles and grey literature like government reports and proceedings was agreed upon by the HTA and BW research partners during one of our conversations in the summer of 2021. Together with the quotes his material was arranged along a narrative timeline, despite the absence of such a temporal context of quota impacts by the hunters and elders in the workshops. We agreed during the process of co-production to strategically present the quotes from the workshops in those ways for two reasons; First, presenting the testimonies as such makes it clearer how Gjoa Haven’s experiences are linked to scientific and political developments and structures over time. This is especially relevant for audiences that might not be familiar with the detailed historical context of quota setting in the MC management unit and associated impacts on Gjoa Haven hunters. Second, the archival documentation draws attention to regulatory, and potentially oppressive structures that have contributed to the experienced shared in the workshop, rather than decontextualizing these experiences from the relationships of power within which they are entangled.  
    
The experiences that are shared in this documentary come from 28 different voices that are narrated as [[#Multiple voices|'we']] in this documentary. The narration of these voices happens through the recorded voice of one speaker from the community, while the archival documentation that provides particularized institutional context is narrated by another speaker from the community. To provide transparency on the multitude that is embedded within this ‘we’, we have added all the community members that contributed to the narrative by name at the end of the video. You can trace the considerations over this- and other choices that were made during the production of “Voices of Thunder”, here. 

[[File:Poster VoT.png|thumb]]

===Voices of Thunder Synopsis:===

"Voices of Thunder" is a [[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary|community-created]], animated graphic documentary, in which Inuit hunters and elders from the community of Gjoa Haven share how they have been impacted by polar bear management policies in their region over the past two decades.

Polar bear management policies in the last two decades, including a polar bear hunting moratorium, have disproportionately impacted Gjoa Haven compared to other Nunavut communities. For two generations they have hardly been able to practice their tradition of hunting polar bears, as a result of international pressures and exclusionary scientific monitoring surveys. Gjoa Haven hunters argue that science could better integrate the knowledge of Inuit themselves and seek recognition for the loss of income, cultural-, and intergenerational knowledge transfer. They want their stories to finally come out - They want their voices of thunder to echo everywhere.

This film was scripted, recorded, drawn and directed by the community members of Gjoa Haven themselves, assisted by a PhD researcher, none of them are professional filmmakers.
The video was produced as part of a Genome Canada polar bear research project; BearWatch.

===Voices of Thunder Inuktitut Syllabics version ===

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===Voices of Thunder English version===

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=='''[[Voices of Thunder#Point of beginning|Click here, if you you took a detour from cut 2, and wish to be redirected to the Point of Beginning of this cut to read about the purpose of co-creating this "Voices of Thunder" documentary]]'''==

=='''[[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary#Film screenings|Click here, if you you took a detour from cut 2 "Aesthetic Action", and wish to return]]'''==

==<span id="webpage"></span>Winds of Change Webpage==

This webpage was built, based on the ongoing conversations between BW researchers and the Gjoa Haven HTA. As representatives for the larger community, the board had expressed a desire to have their “voices of thunder echo everywhere”. To help them do so, we built this “Winds of Change” webpage; as an online advocacy tool and reference source for Gjoa Haven’s “Voices of Thunder”. Published in English (below) and [https://gjoahaven.my.canva.site/winds-of-change-inuktitut Inuktitut], including a [https://gjoahaven.my.canva.site/winds-of-change-syll Syllabics] version, it brings together different material resources that have emerged around the creative collaboration between BW scientists and the Gjoa Haven HTA. Some of these outputs, in particular an interactive timeline, available both in Inuktitut- including a syllabic version- and English, function as a reference source for the [[#Voices of Thunder Animated Graphic Documentary|Voices of Thunder Animated Graphic Documentary]] and the community’s appeal for recognition. Other content on the webpage facilitate insights on the culturally embeddedness of Gjoa Haven’s appeals, with the lands and the way in which people keep polar bear related practices alive. Either through sharing memories, stories and extended insights on human/polar bear relationships, or by remembering family histories and great hunters of the past through drumdancing and Pihhiq’s (ancestral songs). The page contains video recordings in which several community members share such memories and stories. 


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==Voices of Thunder Interactive slideshow==

During the co-production of the animated graphic documentary, it became clear that in addition to an academic publication, webpage and video production, a third way of presenting the experiences as shared by Gjoa Haven’s community members, might be desirable. A document that would provide all the same information, arts and experiences that were shared in the animated graphic documentary- but could also afford for responsive interaction with this content.. A supplemental form of output to the video and webpage, was created in the form of an interactive text-based document, available in three versions; English (below), Inuktitut, and Inuktitut syllabics. It was added to the Winds of Change webpage.

===English version slideshow===

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===Inuktitut version slideshow===

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===Inuktitut Syllabics version slideshow===

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=<span id="impacts papers"></span>Voices of Thunder testimonial reading=

This section invites you to conduct a testimonial reading of Gjoa Haven’s testimonies. The invite consists of a guided reading, in which you as a reader are encouraged to follow alongside non-Indigenous researchers of the Bearwatch project, and: i) Acknowledge initial affective responses towards selected testimonies; ii) Explore how one may be implicated and, if appropriate, how one can respond to to a research legacy that has neglected to properly recognize and engage with Inuit knowledge, and iii) Explore in which ways one can makes oneself accountable to ones relations when conducting such testimonial readings.

This section is explicitly written from the perspective of the academic partners of the BearWatch project, in response to Gjoa Haven’s testimonies, which are in this section presented through selected quotes from the BearWatch workshops, and slides of the co-created “Voices of Thunder” slideshow. Depending on your own positionality, field of expertise, and the particularities of your research collaborations, this invitation may resonate differentially across readers. Readers that practice community-based wildlife monitoring in the Canadian Arctic will likely find some familiarities across their own research contexts and the context within which the particularities of Gjoa Haven’s experiences have played out. Indigenous readers, on the other hand, may not have much to gain by conducting a testimonial reading alongside non-Indigenous researchers, and would perhaps prefer to engage with Gjoa Haven’s testimonies directly. We suggest that as a result of these particularities, readers may want to selectively engage with this section to the degree that is fitting with their positionality.  

==Affective responses==

It is not hard to imagine ourselves, as researchers, to be implicated with the experiences shared by community members from Gjoa Haven. The scientific community is in certain cases even directly addressed by workshop participants. Below (figure 6) we share three individual quotes from the larger transcript of the 2019 workshops to provide insight into the ways in which some community members consider scientific research to be entangled with their experiences around quota setting.


[[File:Testimonials on research GH 2019.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #1, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

These expressed critiques towards the processes and outcomes of research over the past decades, provoked a range of affective reactions among the non-Indigenous researchers of the Bearwatch project. Affect relates here to the emotional and attitudinal engagement with the subject matter, as contrasted with the cognitive domain, which refers to knowledge and intellectual skills related to the material (Seel, 2012). Among such initial affective responses were dissociation, defensiveness, and resistance. V.C. De Groot, for example, being immersed in a relationship with the community of Gjoa Haven to a degree not shared by the other academic members of the collective, took such negative perceptions of research to reflect directly on his personal research history with Gjoa Haven. Initially V.C. de Groot pointed out how he has repeatedly reminded the members of the Gjoa Haven HTA throughout their respective collaborations that expectations of outcomes resulting in an upward revision of quota were not going to be met in the shorter term by their shared work. One of the opportunities that a testimonial reading offers us, is to acknowledge the role of emotions and explore how they reflect the stakes at play when we conceptualize ourselves as implicated subjects.  Instead of reacting in more “knee-jerk”, or defensive manners, a testimonial reading redirects one towards exploring responses that may assist in becoming more accountable research partner towards the communities one collaborates with. 

De Wildt, Whitelaw and Lougheed did not perceive Gjoa Haven’s critique of research outcomes as directed towards V.C de Groot’s work per se. Rather they saw such comments as expressing frustration with research practices in general, extending beyond projects related to polar bears - and as a critique of the GN, in particular towards their surveys leading to Gjoa Haven’s near moratorium, and their subsequent lack of timely accountability towards the community. The initial affective response from those three academic partners ranged from defensiveness about the legitimacy of scientific research, a fear of losing community support, and guilt or cognitive dissonance between (violent) historical research practices, and on our current research practices and collaboration.

Such initial affective responses are often left unmentioned in academic publications in favour of more cognitive or rational responses. As a result, many academics do not know how to examine and articulate their feelings towards their own work (Daly, 2005). This can perpetuate oppression, as unexamined emotions like guilt, might lead to denial, or defensiveness that prevent us from studying how affective responses influence practices and choices made within research. Guilt forms a trap of one remaining oriented on the past, whereas the assumption of responsibility allows us to be future-oriented by questioning how historical contributions relate to present conditions. Conducting a testimonial reading can assist us in acknowledging the unsettlement that our affective responses clearly speak to. Rather than letting it trap us into passive feelings of guilt, or lure us towards superficial forms of empathy, testimonial readings allow us to acknowledge, and explore such unsettlement more meaningfully- for example through an ethics of responsibility. To transcend passive empathy as non-Indigenous research, in the context of the settler-colonial state, we must explore self-implication, and our potentials for taking reconciliatory action-  while also acknowledging our affective responses (including those of guilt and unsettlement), and allow them to assist us in this process, rather than hold us back. What follows is an exploration of what it would entail to respond to the appeal for recognition from Gjoa Haven HTA, by considering ourselves implicated and accountable.   

'''[[Vulnerability|Invitation]]: Trail off towards reading about vulnerability'''

==Implication==

Before we continue to engage with some of the testimonies shared in the workshop, we wish to caution against the conceptualization of reconciliatory allyship in ways that facilitate ‘’moves towards innocence’’ (Tuck and Yang, 2012); the fallacy of imagining there is an easy road to reconciliation leading to superficial actions that alleviate settler guilt, but do nothing to repatriate land, or undo settler power, coloniality or privilege. Reconciliatory allyship shouldn’t be invoked to reinscribe settler virtues, it should be contemplated alongside the concepts of implication, responsibilities to unsettle settler innocence, and to inspire action (Grundy et al., 2019). The form and the possible degree of acting as allies (especially from within institutions rooted in western-based thinking) depends on the complexity of one's entanglement and the privileges one has within the institution and other interlocking socially inherited structures (see Rothberg 2020, p.87). 

Although the quota reductions addressed in the workshops were informed by government surveys, in the 1970s and 1990s, far before Bearwatch scientists started their research in Gjoa Haven- we argue that our practices are entangled within the same research apparatus that lead to the quota reductions to which Gjoa Haven’s testimonies speak. Part of conducting a testimonial reading is to consider oneself as implicated within the larger structures ‘that create the climate of obstacles the other must confront’ (Boler, 1997, p. 257). This “climate” is what Karen Barad refers to as the agential ‘apparatus” (Barad, 2007 p.). And what Rothberg understands as emerging from collectives, like for example the academic institute or the settler-state, to which one subscribes and in turn becomes implicated with (Rothberg, 2019). Our BW partnership consists of academic- and government researchers, hunters, community representatives, funding bodies, etc., which are each shaped and affected in different ways by the socio-political legacy of (polar bear) research practices in Gjoa Haven. To assume responsibility as academic research partners for our structural alignments in this environment we must understand our agency extends  beyond the BearWatch project, as part of the larger apparatus of scientific monitoring and management of polar bears in Nunavut. This is the same apparatus from which the prior (government) research was conducted, that has led to the quota reductions, in Gjoa Haven. 

The findings of the GN survey, conducted from 1997 to 2000, indicated that the MC sub-population had depleted to less than half of its previous population estimate. Recognizing that there was no community consensus on whether polar bear numbers were declining, and if so, whether this was due to over- harvesting, or migration for reasons like for example environmental disturbances or changes in ice, the NWMB proceeded incrementally (NMWB 2000). They first installed a quota of 12 for the MC PBMU in 2000, followed by a moratorium in 2001. They furthermore charged the Department of Sustainable Development to gather additional information during those two years, in order to develop an effective management plan for subsequent years (NMWB 2000).
The only subsequent government-led research activity between the 1997-2000 survey and the next scheduled population survey in 2014 was however the publication of a telemetry study (Taylor et al., 2006) and a community consultation on the listing of polar bears as a species of special concern under the Species at Risk Act (SARA; CWS, 2009). Other projects related to polar bears conducted in Gjoa Haven during this period, were collaborations between Gjoa Haven’s HTA and VC de Groot et al. (2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2015), and a collaboration between Gjoa Haven’s HTA and Darren Keith to document polar bear IQ (Keith, 2005). These projects were conducted in (collaboration with) a community that has been seeking recognition for their disagreement around polar bear research and quota distribution since 2000, with an expectation that researchers address this issue. Neither V.C. de Groot’s nor Keith’s (2005) HTA-invited projects, however, had the resources the scope, or mandate to impact polar bear quota. 

This speaks to a tangible gap between community priorities and the infrastructure available to those communities to have their priorities sufficiently funded, permitted and researched. Despite significant resources spent on polar bear research by institutions outside the community, see for example Nunavut’s Wildlife Research Trust (NWMB, 2022a; ITK, 2018), the financial, human, social and administrative capacities of community organisations like HTAs are limited, and their role in setting the research agenda is reactive rather than proactive; they can grant or withhold community sanction of wildlife research, but have limited mechanisms to influence terms or conditions under which this research is executed (Gearheard and Shirley, 2009). While community organizations like HTAs provide insights via consulting, handle requests for community sanction of research funding and permitting, and assume important roles within the research itself, (government) researchers and managers have not made themselves sufficiently available for questions of concern to the community itself. Such dynamics have tangible consequences for ongoing and future (research) partnerships, including our own. When it comes to the monitoring of polar bears specifically, it’s sometimes hard for community-members to distinguish between academically-driven research practices and those conducted by the government of Nunavut as part of monitoring for co-management efforts. In some cases this causes distrust for science as a whole -especially when community interests have been neglected in the past (Wong et al., 2017).  Earlier in the research project, for example, some community consultations in Gjoa Haven described by BearWatch researchers as being ‘highjacked’ with questions from the HTA on how the results of BW would affect quota. 

Researchers of the Bearwatch project were initially hesitant to enter this conversation. Despite the expressed urgency of the community, the topic of quota setting was considered as outside of our sphere of influence, and scope of scientific research objectives. This testimonial reading made it possible to acknowledge this initial neglect and recognize responsibility towards our research partners to listen and engage with their needs and priorities. Following Rothberg, we are not by default guilty of the lack of accountability displayed by previous research partners in Gjoa Haven - but we do carry a responsibility to acknowledge and address the structures and institutes that have made, and continue to make it possible for researchers to avoid accountability and ignore community priorities.

'''Apparatus: [[Science based conservation]]'''

'''Apparatus: [[Nunavut polar bear monitoring and management]]'''

'''[[The great white beast landmark|Emergent landmark!: The Great White Beast]]'''

==Response-ability==

As a result of the variability in the structural alignments researchers may have within their particular research environments, and the expressed interests of the communities one partners with- acting on one’s response-abilities can take different forms. Among the purposes of sharing community experiences around quota reduction impacts, for the Gjoa Haven HTA, lies the need for broader recognition of Inuit knowledge in the form of better integration of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit in polar bear research and management. 

[[File:Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven -2, artwork by Danny Aaluk.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #2, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

The hunters and elders at the workshop and the Gjoa Haven HTA want the ‘inherent value of Inuit knowledge better acknowledged’. They point out that ‘scientific monitoring surveys have limitations, and they want better integration of Inuit knowledge in such research’. Some workshop participants suggested that better integration of their knowledge would be reflected by an increase of quota for McClintock Channel. Responding to such appeals through testimonial reading does not entail validating such claims, or scrutinizing the potential shortcomings of the scientific surveys that have led to the MC PBMU quota reductions- as if they are completely disconnected from our own practices. It rather indicates a possibility to critically explore and take responsibility for our own subscription, and contributions to different agential apparatuses at play when it comes to historical and contemporary recognition of Inuit knowledge in polar bear monitoring research. ‘’One has responsibility always now’’ (Young, 2010, p.108-9).

One of those agential apparatuses, within which the BearWatch project is materially, historically and politically entangled is the field of scientific monitoring and management of polar bears in Nunavut. The meaningful inclusion of Inuit knowledge within these processes, and research related to wildlife co-management continues to be one of the most pressing issues at stake within meaningful Inuit co-management and self-determination (see ITK, 2018). The specific agential, data-driven decisions made by polar bear biologists and research funders, are often made under international pressures to fill data-gaps on Nunavut sub-population abundance. Such decisions usually continue to follow the cut of post-positivist western natural sciences and its understanding of the world through representative data (Brook, 2005; Smylie, 2014). Scientist seeking to make IQ ‘’intelligible’’ within this performance of western natural sciences, either need to break IQ down into such representative data, or place IQ completely outside of the phenomena of Science to become intelligible as ‘another phenomena’ like; values, beliefs, ethics or cultural identities. Neither of those cuts can be considered meaningfully co-constituted with Inuit ways of knowing and being. 

In our efforts towards taking responsibility as implicated subjects in this field, we have reflected on how Inuit knowledge was engaged with, to achieve one of the main objectives of the BearWatch project; the optimization of non-invasive community-level polar bear monitoring. We focussed on the project’s engagement with polar bear Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)<ref>We regard TEK Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) as a derivative of IQ. Its definition originates from Western academia rather than from Aboriginal communities themselves, and can be understood as "the knowledge of Native people about their natural environment" (McGregor, 2008, p. 145).</ref> to inform sample collection activities. To this purpose, BearWatch researchers have collected and analysed TEK through workshops and individual interviews, coupled with participatory mapping. This focus on documenting and compiling TEK, rather than the more complex endeavour of engaging with Inuit Quajimajatuqangit (IQ)<ref>We use the term ‘Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit’ (IQ) to refer to a holistic set of Inuit values, principles and knowledge that guide relationships among Inuit, animals and their environment (Arnakak, 2000 ; Arnakak, 2002 ; Nunavut Department of Education, 2007; Wenzel, 2004).</ref> and reconciling two different systems of knowing and being as part of reconciliatory approaches to research, fits within a convention of western science, to selectively incorporate those elements of Inuit knowledge that can be processed and measured as ‘data’ (Agrawal, 2002; Nadasty, 1999). Such ‘data’ is often, as was the case within the Bearwatch project,  translated into geographical polygons and markers on a map. Among other goals, such mapping had the objective of guiding future on-the-land field sampling. 

Underlying this approach was an assumption that knowledge integration is a “technical problem”.In such technical approaches, knowledge integration is approached as the challenge of integrating two compartmentalised bodies of knowledge consisting of codifiable data, to be solved by applying the most appropriate interface (see Nadady, 1999). Such a view leads to Indigenous knowledge being seen as simply a new form of "data" - to be incorporated into research and existing management bureaucracies. The choices that were made within the project as part of this desire to ‘integrate’ TEK into western-based sciences and the subsequent processes of analysing the gathered knowledge, have led to the disconnection of such TEK from IQ - and has therefore lost the distinguishable characteristics that would make this TEK, “traditionally” Inuit.

This observation is not to discount the insights, observations, and contributions to research that such knowledge can provide for monitoring research. However, as a process of meaningfully engaging with Inuit knowledge on its own terms, beyond a data-driven focus,  this narrow focus on TEK falls short. Instead of approaching knowledge conciliation as a question of data, Indigenous knowledge should be considered as an invitation to rethink the basic assumptions, values, and practices underlying contemporary processes of research and polar bear management. Many Indigenous people, for example, share an understanding of knowledge not as simply understanding relationships within Creation, but rather as Creation itself (McGregor 2004). Knowledge is something one does. 

[[File:4.32.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #3, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

Although a testimonial reading, in itself, does not provide a more meaningful approaches to conciliating Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and western-based science in polar bear research, it does help us to make ourselves accountable. Rather that merely expressing sympathy or empathy as passive receivers of Gjoa Haven’s appeals for recognition, it helps us redirect towards a self-scrutinizing gaze that allows us to explore our own practices of engaging with Inuit Knowledge. Not only does this open possibilities to reflect upon and consider [[Wayfaring the BW project Point of Beginning#Wayfaring Calendar pilot|different (knowledge) conciliation practices moving forward]] within the research project and community collaboration. The shift towards implication ourselves, also draws attention to the spaces we inhabit and the conditions that allow for certain affordances for some, and limitations for others. What are for example the implications, and responsibilities that come with our position as witnesses of Gjoa Haven’s testimonies? And what are the implications for readers when witnessing our “witnessing” through this writing. How does it differ from witnessing Gjoa Haven testimonies directly? And how do we hold ourselves accountable in such variable positions?

<references/>

==Relational accountability==

[[File:4.41.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #4, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

We explored such frustrations, above, as expressed by some of the Gjoa Haven community members that participated in the 2019 workshops, by exploring the culturally differentiated forms of accountability as practiced within western sciences, and described by scholars who have written on accountability within Indigenous research paradigms. Many Indigenous cultures construe accountability as relational, personal, collective, and with a focus on process rather than outcomes (Wilson, 2008). Within an Indigenous research paradigm that functions within a relational worldview of collective responsibility, and intra-dependency- accountability is often quite literally understood in terms of recognizing one’s responsibilities and making oneself accountable to ones more-than-human relations (Wilson, 2008; McGregor, 2009; Kovach, 2021). 

Traditional understandings of accountability within western academia as the occasional ‘presenting back’ final outcomes of research to partnering communities, come across as distant and disengaged in comparison (reference). 

[[File:4.42.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #5, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

This quote speaks to an expectation, from Gjoa Haven hunters who were present at our workshops, that researchers take responsibility for the social implications of research results that do not translate into preferable outcomes for the communities per se. In the case of Gjoa Haven, many community members expressed feeling like they had to fend for themselves after the considerable cut in polar bear quota. And that the support they were promised, was never delivered.

[[File:4.43.png|border|Selected testimonies from participants of the 2019 workshops in Gjoa Haven #6, artwork by Danny Aaluk]]

The social sciences and the humanities have become arenas for critical conversations about the implications of research results on lived-experiences of community partners. However, many natural science researchers consider such an understanding of accountability as outside their skillset, training, and the scope of their research responsibilities. Accountability for outcomes of scientific research is regarded within polar bear research as the responsibility of other organisations within the management environment, for example the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB). Researchers may find, however, that they engage much more effectively with communities when they are aware of a community’s previous experiences with research and their current priorities (Castleden et al. 2012).

Accountability as part of an ethical cross-cultural research process, can’t be an afterthought. Regardless of the scope and methods of our research projects, we should as community-based researchers at the very least make space and listen, to be aware of culturally specific expectations of accountability of the communities we partner with. An awareness of specific previous experiences, needs, and community priorities requires time and long-term sustainable relationships between communities and researchers. Building such a relationship takes time, effort, and funds, resources that are often argued as lying beyond the purview of current research environments or granting programs. This argument is especially relevant in the field of Arctic wildlife monitoring, which is incredibly resource intensive. With limited time in the field and multiple additional responsibilities tied to academic reward structures for tenure-track positions and granting agencies, like the emphasis on production of ‘new knowledge’ and training students, the current academic landscape is not well aligned with Indigenous conceptions of relational accountability (Castleden et al. 2012).  

What this writing clarifies is that there are nevertheless ways in which we can make ourselves accountable and conduct responsible research as part of our every day-to-day research practices. Ethical action as part of reconciliatory research, may take the shape of creating space to listen and ask questions about responsibility. Conducting a testimonial reading allows for a form of witnessing, that holds the listener accountable to his or her response. It helps us explore manners in which we can move from passive empathy to a response that actively implicates ourselves and asks how we may contribute to change in the practices and structures of the agential apparatuses of which we are part.

'''[[Listening & Witnessing landmark|Emergent landmark!: Listening and Witnessing]]'''

=Another point of beginning=

This manuscript describes the transformation of what originally would have been an academic representation of Gjoa Haven’s experiences on the impacts of significant quota reductions, but evolved to a co-creative process of accepting testimony between Gjoa Haven community members and academic researchers within the BearWatch partnership. By choosing to engage in ongoing conversations and collaborate on different research outputs we have been able to engage with the desire for recognition as expressed by several Gjoa Haven HTA representatives in different ways. As part of our considerations, we co-created an animated graphic documentary, built a website and chose to use the medium of academic publishing as a platform to question the responsibilities that university-based researchers have towards some of the impacts described by Gjoa Haven’s testimonies as implicated subjects. This choice has not only redirected us away from a damage-centric approach where dominant actors get to passively engage, consume, or grant a hearing to ‘usually suppressed voices’ (Jones and Jenkins, 2008), but also opens a pathway to exploring reconciliatory action based on a premise of responsibility and difference.

The “Voices of Thunder” Animated Graphic Documentary has been screened multiple times in Gjoa Haven. Its final cut was screened first for the HTA in a special meeting, and then as part of a [[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary#Film screenings|smaller gathering]] in which community members that either featured, or co-produced the film- to gain final feedback, before the last render. The film was then screened after a sponsored feast for the whole community, as part of [[Workshop Gjoa Haven#Community feast & movie screening|a festive opening of our final workshops]], in combination with several other [[Community co-creation|short videos]] that we shot. After these workshops the film was shared in the Gjoa Haven community Facebook page, with the explicit call to share the movie and show it to friends and family within and outside of Gjoa Haven. It was also screened at several academic conferences related to the (Canadian) Arctic and wildlife management. Among them was a plenary screening at the Annual Science Meeting of ArcticNet in Toronto, 2022, and it was screened as an opening movie during Critical Arctic Studies conference in Rovaniemi, 2023. We furthermore circulated the movie in the film festival circuit, where it got accepted and screened at several relevant festivals like; Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival (SVAFMF) in Toronto, 2023, Aulajut: Nunavut International Film Festival in Iqaluit, 2023, Dawson City International Short Film Festival in Dawson, 2024 and the Available Light Film Festival in Yukon, 2024. Finally, it was taken up in the online collection of imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in 2023.

The film was not only disseminated by BearWatch researchers. The HTA screened the movie at a regional meeting during which the HTA’s of Gjoa Haven, Taloyoak and Cambridge Bay met with the Kitikmeot Regional Wildlife Board. The film was received with praise from the regional board and the other two communities. A Member of the Legislative Assembly, who resides in Gjoa Haven, leveraged the film, together with the “Winds of Change” website in a letter to the Minister of Environment to call attention to Gjoa Haven testimonies and request ‘a detailed update’ on the ‘department’s work with the Gjoa Haven Hunters and Trappers Association to manage this subpopulation’.

As for this manuscript and the testimonial reading. It is clear that a radical shift of self-understanding by many institution-based (non-Indigenous) researchers in relation to their subject(s) and partnering communities is needed. This manuscript invites its readers to engage with Gjoa Haven appeals in different ways- and leave space to choose those that feel more appropriate to ones positioning towards our subject. We nevertheless hope to inspire our academic audience(s), especially those researching wildlife in Nunavut (and beyond), to recognize themselves as structurally implicated in the context that has contributed to the experiences of which the testimonies in this manuscript speak. The strategies used by the academic partners of BW to move beyond passive empathy, and beyond unhelpful categories like innocence and guilt, towards identifying ways to act in solidarity with their community partners could, we hope, serve as helpful considerations for academic researchers committed to challenging the structural injustices faced by the communities they work with.