Inuit Voices: Community-Based Archaeology across the North American Arctic

This special issue of Études Inuit Studies celebrates Inuit voices in community-based archaeology across the North American Arctic. Inuit communities and their ancestors have, of course, always been interested in and engaged with their archaeological histories, origin stories, and foundational narratives. Over the course of the past several centuries, many facets of these relationships have been systematically severed through intensive processes of colonization and bureaucratization, as well as the concomitant removal of heritage concerns from family and community hands (see papers in Nicholas and Andrews 1997; Rowley 2002). Over the past half-century, Inuit have responded to these processes of erasure through steady re-claiming of voice, power, and authority over (1) archaeological processes, (2) the materials and belongings they involve, (3) the places cultural objects are held “in trust”, and (4) the expanding ways in which archaeological knowledge is generated and used (e.g., Dawson et al 2018; Griebel et al. 2016; Loring 2008; Lyons 2013, 2016; Hillerdal, this volume). This work requires constant vigilance (and agitation) because the pernicious processes of colonizing proceed apace; thus, the act of decolonizing has no foreseeable end (Audla and Smith 2014; Auger 2018; Desmarais et al. 2021). Centering Inuit perspectives in research is fundamental to shifting the ways that archaeological practice is carried out in the North. Non-Indigenous archaeologists, while often well-intentioned, have voracious appetites for scientific knowledge about the past (e.g., Ferris and Dent 2020). They/we travel North with both frequency and intensity, and are often unconditioned to taking “no” for an answer (Marek-Martinez 2021). Inuit decision-makers and cultural organizations—such as the Inuit Circumpolar Council (or ICC, representing Inuit member organizations in Alaska, Canada and Greenland) (2021) and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) (2018),—have asserted sovereign control over many aspects of research and practice and are now influencing permitting structures and demanding various levels of community consultation and participation in archaeological work. An ever-increasing proportion of archaeologists have embraced community practice, with its tenets of co-direction and co-creation of knowledge with Indigenous community members, land keepers, and knowledge holders, as a primary mode of practice. This orientation is ethically prompted and supported by the mandates of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and by funders who have changed their recommendations in response (e.g., Supernant 2020). Few archaeologists, however, are formally trained to negotiate the complex transdisciplinary research and practice spaces demanded by community-based archaeology, especially those forms of collaboration truly directed by community heritage objectives (Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson 2007). This work requires the disrupting, un-settling and un-disciplining of established modes of practice (Kelvin and Hodgetts 2020; Schneider and Panich 2022), and the simultaneous experimentation with new approaches to pedagogy and field training, awareness of cultural protocols, sensitivities to the ethics of care, attention to data governance, and practice in developing principles of community and capacity (e.g., Douglass 2020; Gupta et al. 2020; Laluk and Burnette 2021; Peuramaki-Brown 2020; Supernant et al. 2020). In asking how archaeology can help decolonize the way institutions (and practitioners!) think, Atalay (2019, 519) has endorsed the strength and veracity of the collective over the whims of the individual: “thinking-with, listening to and working alongside our community partners and the lands they are in relationship with…provide[s] models for how, and in which ways, our practices can be designed anew.” In the North, such collectivist thinking is essential to addressing the myriad challenges wrought by the climate crisis, a discussion led by Inuit activists (Watt-Cloutier 2015; Pokiak 2020). Here, the applied and multi-perspective nature of community-driven research is critical to assessment and mitigation efforts, and community archaeology can be a particular showcase for …