Listening & Witnessing Landmark

Protocol 1, directive 2 of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Protocols for Equitable and Ethical Engagement (EEE) states that Inuit concerns and voices must be heard.

With limited time in the field, however, 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 the time that is required to honor Indigenous conceptions of relational accountability .

However, the rights and concerns of the Indigenous people we partner with, 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 the communities we partner with.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council Protocol 4 suggests to communicate with intent: "Listen more than you speak (...) Our voices hold knowledge and expertise that needs to be respected during our communications. This often requires listening with an openness to hear what is being shared before you speak.

To "accept testimony" however, surpasses listening as a substantive exchange of ideas, knowledge, and views. Co-creating the "voices of Thunder" productions enabled a practice of recognition that came to matter just as much through the form of testimonial reading, co-creative script-writing, storyboarding, audio-recording, and film screenings, as it did through our strategy of third party exposure. Simultaneously, it allowed us to witness our vulnerable selves as inseparably entangled with the politics of quota setting, the science of polar bear conservation, and the community of Gjoa Haven itself.

Go back to the Cut 1 to find Gjoa Haven's "Voices of Thunder" at their current cusp of emergence.

Return to Cut 1: Voices of Thunder for Another Point of Beginning