Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area, North Slave Region
| Principal Investigator: | Poelzer , Greg (1) |
| Licence Number: | 17488 |
| Organization: | University of Saskatchewan |
| Licensed Year(s): |
2024
|
| Issued: | Mar 18, 2024 |
| Project Team: | Elaina Guilmette, Oscar Zapata , Fatma Ahmed |
Objective(s): To identify indicators of social, economic, and environmental changes in Arctic cities for mayors, city councils, agency leaders, local citizens and residents, and other stakeholders.
Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No. 5786. Arctic cities face multiple challenges from social and economic transformations, deteriorating infrastructure, a changing environment, and pressures on their governance systems. To respond effectively, mayors, city councils, agency leaders, local citizens and residents, and other stakeholders need a clear set of indicators to help them understand changes in Arctic conditions and provide guidance in devising infrastructure and governance strategies to achieve future prosperity and spur sustainability. This NNA Collaboratory expands upon a database of indicators on various topics in numerous cities on natural conditions in the Arctic. Indicators introduce a shared vocabulary with explicit measures and assumptions that allow scholars and others across disciplines to interact while providing a foundation for theory building and testing. The MUST NNA Collaboratory partnership brings together Indigenous organizations, industry/utilities, non-profit organizations, academic partners, and Indigenous and northern communities. Our goal seeks to organize wide-ranging collaborations among the international Arctic research community that will facilitate convergent research and theorizing on the natural, social, and built environment transitions taking place in and around Arctic cities now and in the future. Interviews. Approximately 50 individual interviews (Appendix D) will be conducted in Yellowknife, Canada with local community members. Interviews will last up to 60 mins and will be audio recorded and transcribed by the research team. Only aggregate (i.e., results by community) will be reported. Interviews will be in person and held in public community spaces (i.e., town office, community hall). Focus groups. Approximately 30 individuals will be asked to participate in the focus group interviews (Appendix C). There will be three focus groups with approximately 8-10 participants. Each focus group will last up to 90 mins and will be audio recorded and transcribed. Only aggregate (i.e., results by community) will be reported. The focus group will be in person and in a publicly convenient community space (i.e., town office, community hall). COVID-19 Safety plan is attached and will be followed for all face-to-face interactions through individual interviews and focus groups. A letter of support for this research from the Mayor of Yellowknife is attached. The interviews and focus groups will be non-randomized. We will interview subject matter experts pertinent to our project. All recordings will be transcribed. In the case that interviews must be online, we will employ Zoom’s platform to conduct the interviews. . Work with local partners to identify participants and contact them by email. These will be personal invitations to individuals within the community based on their known experience and interest/ willingness to engage in sharing their stories. All invitations for interviews with government, utilities, industry, or organizations participants will be contacted directly by the researcher(s), via email invitation. All participants for the focus group will be contacted and invited to voluntarily participate by the researchers via email. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from: April 17 - December 31, 2024
