POLAR BEAR RESEARCH AS AN ETHICAL SPACE, PRACTICE AND PROCESS OF ENGAGEMENT

In Nunavut, polar bears are co-managed by federal and Inuit governing bodies. Following the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, it became mandatory to incorporate Inuit knowledge and values in wildlife management and research. However, the ideal of knowledge integration within wildlife conservation research and co-management, too often translates to a practice of box-ticking or knowledge appropriation - despite the many research proposals stating intensions to do otherwise. There is a rich body of knowledge from Indigenous and critical scholars on how to relate, in an ethical manner, different ways of knowing the world. Their approaches often allow for both demarcation of sacred spaces for knowledges that are irreconcilable with western ways of knowing, as well as for exploration of how we can bring together differentiated knowledge(s) on the bases of ethical relationships and mutually agreed upon rules of engagement (see Ermine, 2007). Yet, despite Nunavut’s wildlife co-management system and the prevalent rhetoric of knowledge reconciliation, such approaches are not practiced, and spaces and processes around polar bear research and management are still dominated by euro-scientific ideologies, paradigms, and structures

My research takes a (co-)creative approach to directing attention towards the disconnect between the rhetoric of knowledge reconciliation and current practices within polar bear monitoring and management. Through practicing and facilitating (co-) creative aesthetic action, I seek to explore what affective change towards an ethical space, process and practice of engagement can be achieved in polar bear research and management. As opposed to focussing on outcomes, I question how artistic practice can have social and political effects through our affective engagements with them. And to what degree these affective engagements can result in change (see e.g. Martin & Robinson, 2016).