ENCOUNTERING THE GREAT WHITE BEAST: POLAR BEAR RESEARCH AS AN ETHICAL SPACE, PRACTICE AND PROCESS OF ENGAGEMENT
PhD research
Within my PhD research, I use artistic practice and aesthetic action to explore what it means to practice polar bear research and management in accordance with the principles of ethical space, process and practice.
My PhD research involves a case study of BEARWATCH: a polar bear monitoring research project initiated by Dr. Peter van Coeverden-De Groot, Prof. Stephen Lougheed, Prof. Graham Whitelaw, and (the late) Markus Dyck. BEARWATCH developed a community-based biomonitoring program that combines a non-invasive genomics toolkit with Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) to inform ongoing polar bear monitoring and management.
Scholarship funding 2021-2024
SSHRC VANIER CANADA GRADUATE SCHOLARSHIP
The Vanier CGS program aims to attract and retain world-class doctoral students by supporting students who demonstrate both leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in the social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, and health sciences. Canadian and international students are eligible to be nominated for a Vanier CGS.
Scholarship funding 2019
PRINS BERNARD CULTUURFONDS
DutchCulture is the network and knowledge organisation for international cultural cooperation. We support the Dutch cultural and creative sector, public authorities and diplomatic posts in the pursuit of their international ambitions.
FROM INTEGRATION TO RELATIONS
My dissertation explores the possibilities for ethical knowledge conciliation within community-based polar bear monitoring in Nunavut, Canada by putting feminist theorist and physics-philosopher Karen Barad’s agential realism into dialogue with Indigenous scholar Willie Ermine’s Ethical Space of Engagement (ESE). Situated within BearWatch: Monitoring Impacts of Arctic Climate Change using Polar Bears, Genomics and Traditional Ecological Knowledge—a Genome Canada-funded project that developed a non-invasive, community-based toolkit to monitor polar bears across Inuit Nunangat, this research asks: What does it mean, within the larger apparatus of community-based polar bear research, to practice knowledge conciliation guided by the principles of the ESE, rather than by data-driven needs? The dissertation draws from three years of fieldwork conducted with Inuit community members from Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven) and Salliq (Coral Harbour) in the Nunavut Settlement Area. Rather than viewing conciliation as a negotiation between epistemologies, it views knowledge production as intraactive processes where cross-cultural and disciplinary differences are materially and discursively enacted. Methodologically, my study employs a creative practice (auto-)ethnography, incorporating aesthetic actions like wayfaring, performance art, filmmaking, and collaging as tools for sensorial and performative engagement in-between more-than-human agencies including, but not limited to Inuit hunters, researchers, polar bears, qamutiit (sleds plural), sea ice, and seasonal changes. Written performatively, this dissertation unfolds in rounds and is accompanied by an interactive digital cartographic platform allowing readers to thread their own way through the research. Ultimately, this work reimagines ethical engagement as a shared wayfaring, where knowledge and ethics emerge through moving, making, and practicing research together.
DAS KEYNOTE-LECTURE
Master creative producing - lecture series
MX. SCIENCE
SITUATED PERFORMANCE(S)
As a PhD candidate that explores ways to engage differentiated knowledges within Canadian Arctic research, and polar bear monitoring research specifically, I am interested in practices that move beyond 'integration/inclusion' approaches. As such I theorize PRACTICE according to the framework of "ethical space" (Ermine, 2007). For such practice to take place we need a "third" space - outside of each knowledge system.
To create such a space, where multiple knowledge systems can meaningfully negotiate their mutual terms of engagement, western systems need to "roll back/decolonize/question their positionality" first. My persona (beyond bringing playfulness and hopefully a smile to your face) invites especially non-indigenous researchers to rethink and reflect on their role and position in our scientific landscape. As a figure that potentially unsettles several norms within the Arctic sciences, Mx. Science holds potential to invoke conversations, and create a liminal space to build new relationships. As a situated performance it is both an exercise in new ways of engaging each other through genuine curiosity, as well as an effective tool to que(e)ry where and when differentiated bodies dis/connect in space.
UNESCO RILA PODCAST
University of Glasgow
This presentation and workshop was created by Saskia de Wildt (Queen's University, Canada) and Leonard Netser (Coral Harbour, Nunavut) and is presented by Saskia de Wildt.
Abstract:
In Nunavut, polar bears are co-managed by federal and Inuit governing bodies. Following the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, it is 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 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).
In this episode, Saskia will elaborate on the collaborate efforts she and Leonard are working on to turn polar bear research into an ethical space, process and practice of engagement.
Saskia de Wildt is a creator/researcher. She is currently a PhD Vanier Scholar at Queen’s University, Canada, but has her roots in the Netherlands. Her work transcends boundaries and binaries, but always gravitates close to decolonial theory, sensory ethnography and art. She is interested in applying art-direction, performance art and critical theory towards sustainable development and conservation challenges. To find out more about Saskia, please visit her website www.gingertheworld.com.
Leonard Netser is a hunter and an artist, based in Coral Harbour. As he has grown up and has always lived on the land of Southampton Island, he doesn’t only know the land intimately, he is also well connected to multiple hamlets and individuals on the Island and beyond. He speaks fluent Inuktitut in multiple dialects which made it possible to receive mentorship and advice from community elders.
Leonard has previously collaborated with the BearWatch team as a principle investigator in Coral Harbour for the Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) Indigenous Community-Based Climate Monitoring Program grant, titled; “Nunavummiut Polar Bear Surveys on Southampton Island: Toward Nunavummiut-inclusive Polar Bear Monitoring and Arctic Climate Change Impact Assessment’’.
His culture doesn’t believe in boasting achievements, but rather in telling stories. In his own words his expertise therefore lies all around the Tundra. His skills however, are applicable far beyond.
The music in this episode is from Uppbeat https://uppbeat.io/t/zimpzon/calm License code: KA9TXLHOS09RQY8Q
