Shifting perspectives on shifting ice: documenting and representing Inuit use of the sea ice

• Published in: The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe canadien
• Main Author: Aporta, Claudio
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2011
• Subjects: Earth-Surface Processes; Geography, Planning and Development; Arctic; Climate change; inuit; Nunavut; Sea ice; Nunavik
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2010.00340.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1541-0064.2010.00340.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2010.00340.x

Although much has changed for Inuit since their social, economic, and political integration into Canada, sea ice still forms an essential part of what they call their homeland. The ways in which sea ice is understood by Inuit, however, are still little known to non‐Inuit. Alongside the currently renewed political and economic interest in the Arctic regions, and in part as a result of the mounting preoccupation with the vulnerability of Arctic ecosystems and peoples due to climate change, new research is shedding light on significant aspects of how Inuit use and understand sea ice. This article will focus on the Inuit Sea Ice Use and Occupancy Project (ISIUOP), an initiative to document and map Inuit sea ice use in several communities of Nunavut and Nunavik. ISIUOP is then analyzed in the context of earlier sea ice research and in connection with previous studies of Inuit land use. A comparison between a land use study conducted in the 1970s and ISIUOP is then undertaken in order to highlight differences and similarities in the ways research is conducted and in the changing contexts surrounding both Arctic researchers and Arctic inhabitants .