Learning to do better — a student perspective on scientific outreach in northern Indigenous communities

During the “Ice Monitoring in Salluit, Deception Bay, and Kangiqsujuaq” research project in Nunavik, Quebec, we spent as much time designing outreach activities as we did preparing for our fieldwork, even though time for outreach was very limited.

After our fieldwork ended, we felt the need to share our experience of participating in science communication activities.

Mainstream approaches to scientific research are colonial in nature and have historically contributed to the oppression of Indigenous peoples.

Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.

Now, a new research paradigm is emerging from Indigenous recommendations. It involves a commitment to values of respect, equity, reciprocity, equality, and transparency.

One step to fostering research respectful of these principles is for academic researchers to collaborate with Inuit or northern communities, organizations, and governments.

The Ice Monitoring project is an example of such a collaboration, bringing together a local government, a mining company, as well as university researchers. Team members participated in a series of outreach activities in the Nunavik communities of Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq. The activities included:

• sharing project updates on a Facebook page — an important communication platform for Inuit,
• hosting an information table at the local Co-op store with maps and fact sheets about snow and ice thicknesses,
• interacting with high school students through activities on the topic of sea ice, and
• hosting an information booth during the mining company’s multi-day public forum in the community.

In our paper, we share details about the periodic outreach activities in which we were involved, hoping to help our peers in their own efforts.

We reflect on our experience, outline lessons learned, and share how we would like to continue moving forward in the transformation of our outreach practice.

Read the paper — Our practice of outreach during the Ice Monitoring project in Nunavik: an early-career researcher perspective by Sophie Dufour-Beauséjour and Valérie Plante Lévesque.