Multiple sites of enunciation

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 testimonial reading, 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.

This aligns with the principles of ethical engagement, as it respects the integrity of each voice, and experience without causing cultural confusion. Such cultural confusion is a state in which ‘we no longer know what informs each of our identities and what should guide the association with each other’ (Ermine, 2007 p. 197 ; see also Blackfoot elder Reg Crowshoe in AER, 2014). Becoming explicit in ones sites of enunciation enables one to ‘appropriately, correctly, and respectfully acknowledge the "that's me" and the "that's you" of their differentiated worldviews', as a crucial requirement for different communities to ethically engage with each other (Institute for Integrative Science & Health, 2013b).

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