Workshop Coral Harbour

2-Day Workshop Coral Harbour

Due to the unexpected absence of both our local PI and the full HTO-board, the focus of our workshop had shifted considerably towards the local high-school. Our project research permit, however, did not cover research acitivities within the school. As such, this track only presents what we did, not how our activities in the high-school would contribute to the knowledge conciliation in terms of ethical space of engagement.

You have ran into a Great White Beast.

"Keep going" to read excerpts of our reports on the highschool activities.

Or

"Stay with the Trouble" and read about the ethical dilemmas connected to my contributions to the workshop in Coral Harbour.

Stay with the trouble: Politics of In-action and Refusal

Day 1: Building Qamutiik (Morning)

The pre-gathering activities with the school principal and teacher led to inclusion of sessions within the final workshop design for school participants only. included Qamutiik building and science-based bingo and presentations.

The final workshops were always supposed to include several sessions related to ethical knowledge conciliation in community-based polar bear research. The qamutiik building sessions approaches this topic in a way that moves away from considering knowledge conciliation as a “problem” of integration or co-production of knowledge that can be solved by applying the right interface between two differentiated knowledge systems.

Through the proposed workshop activities, the potentials of knowledge conciliation through day-to-day practices like navigating the land, or collecting ice for example were to be explored. To this end the workshop contained a session in which we would engage further to define ‘Aesthetic Action”.

The physical exercise of researchers building the qamutik together with pupils from the school, and a workshop teacher allowed for a completely different approach to knowledge conciliation. First of all, the decision to build a qamutiq was based on an expressed need by the school work-shop. This need emerged as part of negotiating terms for this particular session with the School Principal, Cirnac Project Lead Leonard Netser, and several teachers of the school. After that, the materials needed to be prepared, as for there to be enough time to finish the qamutik together. These processes require immersion in the community. Most importantly however, there is a degree of intra-dependency that is required to collaborate on this project. The afternoon of building together was not just meant as a pedagogical event on IQ, it provided a moment for Southern researchers to be present, receptive, attentive and engaged- all qualities that seem straight-forward, but are not a given in the realities of Arctic fieldwork, while being a crucial element to ethical engagement in research. Reserving space to devote an afternoon on such dynamics and taking the time to reflect on them, provides practical entrance points for understanding Inuit Knowledge (or IQ) to not only be considered as deeply entangled with on-the-land practices and skills, but also are part of practices and traditions that emerge from intra-relational dependencies. Similar activities in Gjoa Haven have provided for deeper relationship building and new opportunities to consider IQ in ways that are less extractive, and more engaged within the process of doing research.

Highschool students and researchers from the south participated together in building a qamutik under guidance of Ross Eetuk, the school workshop teacher. The purpose of the event was to give students the experience of building a qamutik, to encourage knowledge transfer across cultures, and provide an opportunity to connect and create together.

Co-PI van Coeverden de Groot cutting wood to size (photograph by de Wildt, 2022)

Marsha Branigan working on the Qamuttik (photograph by de Wildt, 2022)

Science presentations (Evening)

During the main gathering in Coral Harbour, BearWatch researchers from the South, both in person and virtually, gave a series of presentations outlining new, non-invasive tools and a new way to determine the cost effectiveness of the collection of various types of polar bear data.

These presentations were followed with a summary of all the non-invasive work that was carried out and led by co-PI Netser on Southampton Island with CIRNAC support over the last four years. This included scat collection, bear den location and excavation, and optimization efforts for the collection of snow from polar bear tracks for genetic analysis.

Day 2: School Bingo, Lunch, Presentation (Morning)

The second morning of the Coral Harbour workshop we visited the high school, were informal presentation were made by co-PI's Lougheed, Van Coeverden de Groot and wildlife biologist Marsha Brannigan on non-invasive polar bear assays, Coral Harbour polar bear field work, grizzlies and polar bear hybridization.

We finished the session with a custom BearWatch polar bear bingo that I had created for the high School Science seniors.

Custom BearWatch Bingo (created by de Wildt, 2022)

Day 2: “Living with Polar Bears” (Evening)

The final activity of the gathering was a workshop-like activity seeking insights from local hunters and community members on how to ‘live with bears’ (versus the current management via quota system).

The gathering intent (and design) was to commence the bringing together of Inuit ways of being and knowing with Western science in the context of polar bear monitoring. Although some effort was expended on the selection of the venue for this gathering, outside of the governance institutional buildings- allowing for intimacy of a gathering, comfortable interaction of community members and the participation of Southern colleagues, a lack of community embeddedness made finding such a place difficult. In the end Coral Harbour Hamlet conference room was generously provided by the Hamlet of Coral Harbour.

Detour to cut 3: BW Final Reporting