| Summary: | `titrebStretching the Concept of Representative Bureaucracy: the case of Nunavut`/titrebThis article examines the complexities of creating a representative public service in the new Canadian territory of Nunavut. It discusses initiatives taken to build a representative public service that reflects the composition, language base and cultural interests of the territory’s predominantly Inuit population. The article shows how the Government of Nunavut’s multi-dimensional approach to creating a population-reflective public service stretches the concept of representative bureaucracy. It highlights the potential radicalizing effects of creating a public service grounded in Indigenous perspectives and experience.Points for practitionersDrawing on research in Nunavut, Canada, this article highlights the complexities of developing a representative public service that reflects the Indigenous population being served. It emphasizes the value of linking numeric strategies to build a population-reflective public service with programs to ensure that Indigenous languages and cultures are integrated into the workplace. The article highlights the importance of linking initiatives to promote employment training with strategies to encourage cross-cultural exchange between Indigenous and non-Indigenous employees.The article also demonstrates the complexities of integrating traditional Indigenous values into contemporary bureaucratic governance when managers of departments are non-Indigenous and understanding of traditional Indigenous knowledge is contested. In addition, it emphasizes the difficulty of promoting Indigenous language use in the government workplace if Indigenous language instruction is not fully integrated into the school system.The article concludes by suggesting that the pursuit of a multi-dimensional approach to representative bureaucracy that addresses questions of numerical, cultural and linguistic representation of Indigenous citizens could profoundly affect the operation of public government ...
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