Our practice of outreach during the Ice Monitoring project in Nunavik: an early-career researcher perspective

Inuit Nunangat which includes the Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, Nunavut, and Inuvialuit is seeing an ever-increasing number of research projects; between 1996 and 2011, the number of publications concerning this region increased by 200% (ITK 2018). Mainstream approaches—the dominant trend—to scientific research are colonial in nature and have historically contributed to the oppression of Indigenous peoples (Smith 2012; ITK 2018), including Inuit (Pfeifer 2018). Today, the research community recognizes the partnership role Inuit must play in research involving people, wildlife, and environment (ITK 2018). The International Polar Year 2007–2008 hoped to “strengthen the dialogue and links between Arctic residents and the research community”, for instance through community outreach activities (International Council for Science 2004). One of three committees guiding research priorities within ArcticNet, a Network of Centres of Excellence of Canada operating since 2003, is the Inuit Advisory Committee (ArcticNet 2019), and the network’s annual conference showcases many northern speakers and talks relating to Inuit priorities. A new research paradigm is taking form, outlined through principles like ownership, control, access and possession (OCAP; a registered trademark of the First Nations Information Governance Centre, see FNIGC 2019) of research processes and data, as well as a commitment to the values of respect, equity, reciprocity, equality, and transparency (INQ 2017).

The community–researcher relationships are increasingly placed as the heart of the research process (ACUNS 1998; Nickels and Knotsch 2011). Yet, “the idea of trusting relationships as a foundation for ethical engagement in research is easy to endorse but difficult to enact” (Ball and Janyst 2008, p. 52). Building relationships based on trust requires researchers to spend time in the community, and it also involves a commitment to the relationship and to community interests, for instance youth training and empowerment Castleden et al. 2012; Provencher et al. 2013; Tondu et al. 2014; Gérin-Lajoie et al. 2018). Inspiring examples of this include artistic and cinematographic projects (Heath 2010; Baird et al. 2018), online data diffusion and cartography (Laidler 2006; Ljubicic et al. 2014; Carter et al. 2018), youth and (or) elder camps (Gearheard et al. 2013; Hirsch et al. 2016; Gérin-Lajoie et al. 2018; Gibson et al. 2018), and community-driven monitoring (Knopp 2010; Loseto et al. 2018). Outreach or community engagement can be undertaken with scientific activities like announcements on the radio, posters, and school lectures (Castleden et al. 2012) and also with nonscientific activities like playing games and drinking tea (Castleden et al. 2012, Tondu et al. 2014), as well as spending time with youth, feasting together, and witnessing cultural events (Adams et al. 2014).

Certain projects require that researchers visit a community frequently, or even spend months or years living there, providing an opportunity to build relationships. For others, however, presence in the community can be limited to a few days per year. This is the case for the Ice Monitoring project (Gauthier et al. 2018), a collaboration between local public and private partners as well as university researchers. Data collection for this sea-ice research project in Nunavik’s Salluit, Deception Bay, and Kangiqsujuaq was limited to a day’s work, twice per year. In this context, team members could hardly hope to meet more than a dozen or so people in each community, let alone build meaningful relationships.

In this paper, we share details about the Ice Monitoring project’s periodic outreach program (Part I), discuss lessons learned (Part II), and explore the transformation of our practice moving forward (Part III). We address the complexity of our position as non-Indigenous early-career researchers participating in a project that includes private partners through a discussion on the perception of our integrity. Before delving into these questions, we first present ourselves, share our hesitation to write this paper, and provide some context on the Ice Monitoring project.

We are two PhD students (a physicist and a geographer) at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique in Quebec City and share first authorship of this paper. We have a strong background in social justice organization and identify as female euro-descendents. While the outreach activities described in this paper were organized by a large and diverse group of collaborators including northerners as well as academics, the following perspective is that of the two authors, writing here in the first person (“we”).

Throughout our involvement in students’ rights activism and feminist struggles, we gained an understanding of how certain groups are marginalized and excluded, as is the case for Indigenous peoples in Canada. We learned about Indigenous organizations’ and individuals’ recommendations for doing research in their communities at the ArcticNet annual meeting, workshops aimed at training early-career researchers to work with northern Indigenous communities, and university courses in feminist studies. During the research project, we continued to educate ourselves through workshops, news outlets—Nunatsiaq News, CBC North, and CBC Indigenous, etc.—and Inuktitut classes, becoming increasingly aware of Inuit calls for self-determination and research decolonization. Finally, we learned by working with Salluimiut and Kangiqsujuammiut (people of Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq), and northerners such as the Kativik Regional Government environmental specialist.

Because we dedicated a significant part of our PhDs to participating in the Ice Monitoring project’s outreach program, we eventually had to face the question of “making it count” professionally by publishing a paper on the subject. The lack of recognition for time spent on outreach has deterred researchers from engaging in such activities in the past (Provencher et al. 2013). Yet, funding agencies increasingly value outreach as part of a northern research program (Ball and Janyst 2008; Provencher et al. 2013), and early-career researchers have been encouraged to share their outreach efforts through peer-reviewed publications (Tondu et al. 2014).

Even so, we reflected on what it meant to gain professional recognition from our participation in the project’s outreach, worrying that it would cheapen our efforts. For instance, authors have condemned the practice of using community-based research for career building (Mitchell and Baker 2005; Tuck and Yang 2012). Ultimately, we decided to write this paper for the following reasons. First, researchers—particularly students—often have a limited number of opportunities to do outreach and cannot rely solely on improving through iteration; consulting the scientific literature on outreach is a good way to improve. Second, sharing our experience with our peers allows us to process our feelings and reflect on our practice and to continue educating ourselves by situating our story relative to what others are doing (Tondu et al. 2014). Third, if outreach is to be understood as integral to the research process, it should involve thoughtful planning, decisions informed by the literature, and the attention to detail shown in other aspects of research.

For the Ice Monitoring project, presence in each community was extremely short: one to several days, twice a year. Outreach activities typically lasted only a couple of hours. Despite their scarcity, the activities were planned in advance and over the course of the project. Table 1 shows an inventory of the activities in the project’s periodic outreach program, their length, and the number of activities organized in each community. It is important to note that in-community work in the north can be affected by unforeseen circumstances. For example, planned outdoor activities with the Salluit high school were cancelled in 2016 and 2017 due to bad weather or school closures.

Funding was required to pay for time in the communities, where the biggest expense was for accommodations. Research funds (NSERC Discovery Grant—Northern Research Supplements Program, Northern Scientific Training Program) and fieldwork were optimized to plan for a little more time (a half or full day) in each community than what was required for the fieldwork (a day and a half). In the third year of the project, a personal grant from the W. Garfield Weston Foundation paid for three additional days of in-community time in Kangiqsujuaq before fieldwork, coordinated by the graduate student who received the grant. Funding and logistics for in-community time (several days) associated with the Environmental Forum were supplied by Raglan.

Early-career researchers—including graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and early-career faculty—in the natural sciences typically feel less equipped to conduct research with northern communities than their colleagues in the social sciences (Sjöberg et al. 2019), and we were no exception. To improve our research practice, we relied on mentorship (as described earlier) and on Indigenous recommendations (Asselin and Basile 2012; NCAI 2012; Smith 2012; INQ 2017; ITK 2018). In the predetermined context of very limited in-community time, only a few of these recommendations felt within our reach: those relative to individual attitudes and communication with community members. On the individual level, we tried to be mindful of our participation in a colonial system and often reflected on how our actions were either reinforcing it or not. In terms of communications, we tried to make the research easy to understand and interesting and to provide opportunities for community members to react to it.

While we did not perform a formal evaluation of our outreach efforts in the scientific sense, for instance through a survey, the activities were designed based on advice from northerners or Indigenous literature on the subject. Furthermore, any comments received on an activity were noted for the next time—for example, having translated material.

We don’t mean to imply that the outreach described in this paper was sufficient. As PhD students stepping into an on-going project, we were overwhelmed by Indigenous recommendations on research, very limited in-community time, funding limitations, and project deadlines. Today, it would be easier for us to navigate these restrictions and find areas in a project where outreach could be included. We would also feel more confident in our instincts of which activities may work best and of the general importance of doing them. Even so, limited in-community time would likely remain a significant hurdle to building outreach programs such as those referenced in the introduction, and as early-career researchers we would still lack influence on the level required for such action.

In the context of “research fatigue”, we sometimes wondered if outreach activities could become invasive. Community members may understandably be tired of hearing about research projects and of being solicited time and time again to engage with researchers (Brunger and Wall 2016). Without having an answer to this question, we feel that certain forms of outreach may put less pressure on people than others. An example of this is the Environmental Forum, where people could hear about three research projects in one sitting. With this in mind, we would focus on communication networks and relationships already existing in the community—for instance collaborating with Youth Fusion employees living in the community and organizing activities with the youth to foster school perseverance (Youth Fusion 2018).

We would also try to provide more space for local perspectives on the project. The outdoor activity on the ice could include parts in Inuktitut by the guides on the cultural importance of sea ice, including short family stories, and on the work being carried out. Encouraging our Inuit collaborators to participate in presentations about the project would help improve communications: some information could be given in Inuktitut directly and by someone aware of the local reality, instead of by a stranger through translation. This would serve to deformalize the flow of information. A small example of this is the principle local guide for the project now co-administrates the Facebook page and sometimes posts updates on sea-ice conditions.

While no ethics certification was required for the Ice Monitoring project, consulting with the university ethics specialist proved very helpful with regards to the transformation of our practice. We would organize such a discussion early on in a future project. We would for instance like to reflect on how equal weight could be given to opinions about the project whether they be voiced informally at the Co-op or in formal meetings, which would be a way to include more opinions from women. To work with women on the land, one strategy could be to ask guides we’ve already worked with if their wife, female relatives, or female friends would be interested to guide us as well.

Towards the end of the project, we developed a radio outreach activity about the land that went beyond the scope of the research and originated from the on-going transformation of our practice. This oral expression activity was organized in 2018 with an English class at Kangiqsujuaq high school. It included brainstorming, recording, and listening. Students first came up with open questions like “What type of food do you get from the bay?” and “Where do you like to go on the land?” They then recorded themselves discussing climate change, hunting, mining, and their relationship to the land. With parental consent, the result was aired on CBC Radio One and CKIA 88,3 FM (Quebec City). The class listened to the podcasts (CBC 2018; CKIA 2018), which were also shared with the community via the school’s Facebook page (facebook.com/arsaniqschool/).

In this paper, we shared details on the periodic outreach activities in which we were involved, hoping to help our peers in their own efforts. We reflected on our experience and outlined lessons learned as well as how we would like to continue moving forward in the transformation of our practice. We refrained from talking about the “decolonization” of research, a process unachievable without the active and conscious involvement of Indigenous peoples themselves. Instead, we focused on actions aligned with this process but still within our reach as euro-descendent researchers.

Many questions remain unanswered. Who is doing outreach? Twelve out of 15 researchers interviewed by Castleden et al. (2012) about their community-based participatory research were women, as were seven out of nine speakers at a 2018 ArcticNet session on outreach by early-career researchers. This could be linked to the emotional work associated with the deconstruction of power relations, which we feel is inherent to researchers doing outreach in an Indigenous context. The pressure to “engage” with researchers piling on to a community’s research fatigue is another point on which we hope more work will be undertaken, particularly since researchers are increasingly asked to engage communities. We wonder, can there be too much outreach? Finally, we’ve discussed how outreach program in which we participated was led in part by the project’s private partner, and the challenges associated with this situation. This begs the question: who should pay for outreach? We leave these questions to the growing community of individuals committed to a better research system.

We express gratitude to the communities of Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq for their welcome. In particular, we are grateful to all the community members who worked as guides on the Ice Monitoring project, helped the project along the way, or participated in the outreach activities we presented in this paper. A special thanks to Juupi Tuniq and Pierre Lebreux from Salluit as well as Maasiu Arngak and Peter Qisiiq from Kangiqsujuaq, for their help during outdoor activities with high school students. We also express gratitude to the Kativik School Board for the authorization to do outreach activities with the students as well as the staff at Arsaniq and Ikusik high schools for their warm welcome and support. We extend a heartfelt thank you to Véronique Gilbert, the environmental specialist at the Kativik Regional Environment, for her role in fieldwork coordination, liaison with the communities and other project partners and, on a personal level, for her sustained mentorship. Thank you also to Amélie Rouleau—Public Affairs, Communications and Community Engagement Director—at Raglan Mine, a Glencore company, for her enthusiasm regarding outreach. Thank you to colleagues at INRS, particularly to Pr. Monique Bernier, principal investigator on the Ice Monitoring project, as well as Yves Gauthier and Jimmy Poulin, research professionals, for their commitment to community engagement. Thanks also to the interns who collaborated in outreach activities: Pierre-Olivier Carreau and Étienne Lauzier-Hudon. Thank you Catherine Girard, postdoctoral fellow at Université Laval (Sentinel North) and Guillaume Proulx, master student at Université du Québec à Montréal, for their insight on this manuscript. Thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers who provided insightful comments on this manuscript. Thanks to NSERC Discovery Grants—Northern Research Supplements Program and Polar Knowledge Canada (Safe Passage) for funding the fieldwork during which outreach was performed. Thanks also to Raglan Mine, a Glencore company, for supporting fieldwork and our participation in the Environmental Forum. Thanks to the W. Garfield Weston Foundation for funding an extended stay in Kangiqsujuaq. Scholarships were provided to the authors by NSERC, the W. Garfield Weston Foundation, and the Northern Scientific Training Program.