NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area, North Slave Region

Tags: social sciences, land claim, land use planning, colonization, architecture

Objective(s): To answer how the settler colonial governments of the United States and Canada used federally-funded, cold-war era scientific research infrastructures to appropriate Indigenous lands during the second half of the twentieth century; and, to show the mechanisms by which settler colonial governance continues and changes through the twentieth century, and demonstrate the role of architecture and land use planning in that governance.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No.5261. This research project asks how the settler colonial governments of the United States and Canada used federally-funded, cold-war era scientific research infrastructures to appropriate Indigenous lands during the second half of the twentieth century. The aim of the research is on the one hand to show the mechanisms by which settler colonial governance continues and changes through the twentieth century, and demonstrate the role of architecture and land use planning in that governance. On the other hand, the research aims to center Indigenous land use practices as forms of refusal of the settler state and study land claims, legal cases, and protest movements as expressions of Indigenous sovereignty on contested lands. The study does this at three sites: the Kitt Peak National Observatory on the Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona, USA; the Maunakea Observatories in Hawai‘i, USA; and the Inuvik Research Laboratory (now Western Arctic Research Center) in Inuvik, NWT. In Inuvik, the study seeks to trace how community activism and collaboration transformed spaces of scientific research and understandings of land in the context of the Inuvialuit and Gwich’in Land Claims Agreements. The project intends to show how the meaning of the land is asserted and contested through land use and land claims. The Principal Investigator (PI) will use archival research and interviews with human subjects to carry out this study. The PI will first conduct research in the Library and Archives Canada before traveling to the Northwest Territories. In Inuvik, the PI will consult the Dick Hill Collection of the Inuvik Centennial Library. In dialogue with the Gwich’in Tribal Council and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, The PI will contact and request interviews with individuals who have memories of the early history of Inuvik, those who were involved in the Inuvialuit and Gwich’in Land Claims Agreements, and individuals who have collaborated with the Inuvik Research Institute/WARC. In Yellowknife, the PI will interview individuals at the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Review Board. The PI has reached out to representatives from the Inuvialuit Research and Government Affairs offices and the Gwich’in Tribal Council and Language, Culture, and Heritage office, and anticipate that my research methods will be shaped through conversation with these offices to find a process that centers benefit to the community and reciprocity. I The PI will consult with these organizations as to how best communicate throughout the process and to ensure the PI is communicating with interviewees in the most respectful manner. The PI will also ensure the interviews themselves are carried out in ways that benefit the Gwich’in and Inuvialuit communities and the current research interests and capacities of their respective governments. The PI will do this in dialogue with representatives from the Inuvialuit Research Office and Gwich’in Language, Culture, and Heritage Office. This may result in changes to my research questions and process. The PI could see a side outcome including educational material for children. The PI will use snowball sampling, in which case the PI will have an initial conversation to describe the project and ask if the individual is interested in participating in an interview, and will then schedule the interview. Verbal consent will be obtained at the start of each interview. Upon arrival in Inuvik, I will first go to the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and Gwich’in tribal council to meet the Inuvialuit research office, and the Gwich’in Chief and Council, local Renewable Resources Council, and Language, Culture, and Heritage Office. After interviews, the PI will follow up with interview participants to send transcripts of the interview for them to approve or make changes to. Prior to any publication that would include quotations or information from interviews would also be sent to interviewees for approval and edits. Any publications would be sent to participants, Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Gwich’in Tribal Council, and WARC. Lastly, the PI will return to Inuvik to give a public presentation in the summer of 2023. Upon completion the PI will make a copy of my dissertation available in hard copy to Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Gwich’in Tribal Council, and WARC, and electronically to all interviewees. Should interview participants approve I will also make copies of interview transcripts available to the archives of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Gwich’in Tribal Council, and WARC, as well as other appropriate venues. In the event the dissertation manuscript is published in book form, I would reach out to all project participants, send copies of the book, and if there is interest hold an event for the community. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from November 16, 2022 to December 31, 2022.