NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

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

Tags: #religiousstudies, #Muslims, #ArcticIslam, #ethnography

Objective(s): To understand Muslims experiences in environments around the Arctic Circle in Canada.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No. 5835. This research project will focus on how Muslims make sense of Islam in environments around the Arctic Circle in Canada. There, religious traditions seem more challenged than elsewhere. For example, because of the extreme light conditions. Research will strive to answer: • How do Muslims in the Arctic live their lives, both as individuals and as a community? • From which authorities is advice sought for practical, religious, and juridical matters? • What are ideas of community, home and belonging? • How are relations to their new neighbours and environment? Muslims in Arctic Canada belong to a bigger research project which also covers Arctic Norway. The researcher hopes to contribute with a new perspective to the academic debate on Muslim subjectivity formation today and offer new insights to newcomer/Indigenous relations in Canada. The researcher will engage in participant observation and interview community members, where participation and volunteerism will take place in a variety of public events and events, where permitted, such as: women's circles, social activities for the community. Observations of experiences will be noted. Interviews: Interviews take approximately 2 to 3 hours. Questions have been prepared, but these may not all be covered and interviews will be semi-structured. The focus will be on the flow of the interview and on the participant's interests rather than going through the questions one by one. Questions concern buying, travelling, praying, eating, celebrating holidays, and moments of struggle and comfort. There are also life story interviews that will focus on the participant's life course and experience. Fieldwork was started in 2023 through licence #5694, where contact was previously made with members of the Muslim community in Yellowknife, Inuvik and Whitehorse. In Inuvik, there will be contact with the mayor and the Arctic Foodbank via phone and Facebook and meetings will potentially occur after the Christmas holidays 2023. Other NWT stakeholders that have been contacted via email to solicit response and feedback, include: Yellowknife Dene (dettahadmin@ykdene.com), North Slave Métis Alliance (general@nsma.net), NWT Métis (info@nwtmetis.ca), Inuvialuit Inuvik (iccmanager@inuvialuitcc.com), Gwich'in Inuvik (President@nihtatgwichin.ca). Throughout the process, the researcher is planning to stay in touch with stakeholders via e-mail and phone calls where desired and necessary. Together with the community in Yellowknife, the researcher is starting to think about ideas to share the research in the framework of a community event. Research participants and the communities will be kept updated in summer 2024, which is why the research has been extended to include Behchoko and Fort Smith. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from: March 1 - December 31, 2024