Kunuugama

I recently did a presentation at a webinar on self-determination hosted by Inuit Nunaat Fund. As these events go I felt like my answers were not as orderly and coherent as I wanted them to be. So I wanted to write out my thoughts to make sense of the topic for myself and to share them with you. Some of these thoughts were heard, but not all of them.

Context

In preparation for the webinar, as I thought about what self-determination means, I realized it is often in context of colonial forces. When reacting to something is not coming from an empowered place. It is actually antithesis to self-determining. Even though it makes sense the definitions are in context of colonialism because we did not have to think about it prior to imposition of oppressive systems because we just did it. And when I think about how we just did it as Inuit I think about how Inuit kept social order and much depended on how children were raised, socialized. To carry responsibility through their lives and this depended on having strong individuals to be collective well-being minded.

The term commonly understood for this concept through reclamation work now is Inuinnguiniq, the revitalization work to bring back how Inuit raised (raise) and socialize children fostering a capable, confident, and compassionate person who can thrive in their environment and community. Inuinnguiniq comes with an understanding that we are always striving to learn and evolve through our lives. Healthy social systems depend on socialization, to ensure social cohesion to allow for social and economic (food, clothing, shelter, tools) stability and not only needs being met but to allow thriving. Social cohesion includes the ability to deal with conflict swiftly to leave as little lasting impact as possible.

Fast forward to government times, with destruction, despair and despondency due to theft of lives, really: our names, language, land, culture, unity, our souls. Basically, the capacity to be fully ourselves. And the proposed antidote or solution by same governments is to take part in colonial systems and way of life, ending up in a vicious cycle that destroys our sense of selves because it is not our social system. Where our ‘Inuit’ lives are recreational or after thought.

Yet, we continue to dare to hope, dream and work towards a better future. To seek ways to look after ourselves on our own terms. We are where we are today, still mostly intact albeit with a lot of social baggage, because Inuit have continued to fight and evolve what it means to run our own affairs, or be self-determined. Understanding that this is a moving target.

It is in this context I wanted to explore what self-determination means. By first acknowledging Inuit have, and have had social systems to sustain and maintain our own lives, while acknowledging we are still living with destructive forces.

Definition

I have searched through different definitions of self-determination, legal, policy, academic, many are rooted in colonial systems defining it for us in ‘granting us rights or freedoms’ or negotiating it down to appease colonial systems such as our treaties which are created and interpreted through Canadian legal systems, not our own laws. The definition of self-determination I like, because I know it came from an empowered place is one that was created through a gathering of circumpolar Inuit in Qikiqtaġruk (Kotzebue) in 2023, which turned out would culminate into creating Inuit Nunaat fund. The definition created was:

“Defining our own terms and owning, taking, and occupying our own spaces is essential. Awareness of where we are collectively and emotionally, without deference to or fear of others, choosing to accommodate our needs and not those of outsiders. The genuine understanding of the “self” in self-determination, based on names and kinship as well as our traditional homelands and territory. Further more, willingness to challenge what is accepted as the norms and being determined to effectively, purposefully manifest our own collective, genuine self-determination based upon our narrative of success.”

If we’re to unpack what it means to be self-determined or determining, let’s see what it entails by looking at different elements of this definition.

Defining Our Own Terms

It is important to note the gathering of Inuit itself was very intentional in gathering a group of Inuit working on reclamation, not representing organizational interests. There was autonomy in this definition. It is not institutional or responding to one. Autonomy or sense of autonomy creates “…owning, taking, and occupying our own spaces is essential” and vice versa.

Our formal governing organizations can create or have safe spaces ‘to be freely’ Inuk, and define our own destiny. Since they are products of western systems and or responding to them, those spaces are few and far between. What we see largely is structures working against our self-determination because Canadian systems are based on crown sovereignty and resource development with policies and bureaucracy that uphold these principles. The space Indigenous people work in is exception to the above underlying proposition. It is critical then to have spaces to define our own terms, even defining what self-determination means, then how we are to achieve it.

Awareness

Awareness is to self, to our identity, the connection to our own systems and land. The Qikiqtaġruk definition also acknowledges the barriers to self-determination which are fear, coercion, or being coopted. An important aspect to reclamation is decolonization. Decolonization is the process of clearly seeing how colonial forces maintain a power hold, so that action can be taken to remove the grips through reclamation work. It is like shedding light into a situation so you can work on fixing it, it is a two-handed process.

So much of self-determination work is untraining our minds, to be free from the chains of colonialism and colonial thinking. For example the tension between mining centered economies versus a hunting centered one, when all the mines create disruption to critical habitat for our wildlife. This often creates friction in our communities as many do not see the larger power dynamics or the internalized values that are not ours. Nor do some want to see them. There can be so much privilege and power to upholding colonial structures. Unfortunately, we are pinned against choosing imperialism or coloniality versus resistance. Even if we do not see it clearly.

There are also many distractions to keep us from understanding the power dynamics or confront them. Fear is used to control the agenda, for example that our housing and food insecurity situation will not be attended to and will continue to get worse, if we do not comply with the government agenda. Our funding is always at risk it seems. Fear is used to influence the opinions, attitudes, and ultimately, the actions of a target audience toward a specific outcome or belief or to continue conformity.  We are inundated with highly emotional content especially on social media which can exacerbate fear and anxiety. We are often so grateful for crumbs of funding, or programming, when our country was built on the riches of our stolen lands. No where is there a process to truly define our needs on our terms, especially as we fight for very basic human needs of food and shelter for so many of our people.

In my early work on self-determination, I remember realizing that half the battle to self-determination is BELIEVING we can. The awareness piece, to the larger picture, is critical to the process then.

The “Self”

The “self” in self-determination can be our individual selves, our family, settlement or land area affiliation, basically anyone you share values, activities or identity with.  I remember when I took on a job to lead the self-determination file, that the idea is a very personal one. I went through a process of questioning whether I am leading a self-determining life if I am to help pursue the idea for Inuit in Nunavut. We pretend these concepts are external, when they are also very personal.

I also realized that Inuit identity is very diverse and complex. Not only because Inuit have always been diverse, there is the added diversity brought on by genocidal acts to destroy who we are. For example, those that speak only Inuktut language, those who don’t, those that have grown up in the south, and those that grew up entirely in a community, those that know traditional skills, those that don’t and so on. Above all, the most important work now to define the self is the identity confidence work we need to continue to do. We need people who have a strong sense of who they are, if they are to fight for it.

Our Own Narrative of Success

There are many examples of self-determination in spite of challenges or almost everything working against it happening. Where are these examples of self-determination happening? Another way of asking this question is where are the spaces where Inuit can be unapologetically themselves? Aside from out on the land, which is a given. What brings to mind is the spaces of safety to be ourselves as discussed earlier. The test to whether our organizations are allowing self-determination is whether they are working in our favor to reclaim or allow our names, language, land, culture, unity (including family, Inuit), souls, and our connections to these.

We have our own way of making decisions, raising our children, keeping social order, practicing art, beauty, expression, our own relationality expressed through our language (which has been stolen from so many). I use the term stolen, because it was a very deliberate act to remove our languages. People did not lose their language. We are in the business to grow the community of empoweredness.  Staying centered in ‘care’ and ‘responsibility’ can be challenging when we face everyday challenges of opposing values.

Our own definition of success should be reclaiming our social systems, especially how children are raised and socialized. Inuit have always been ingenious and adaptable, there is a reason for that. We have had a social system that has worked since millenia. It may take a while to figure out how it can apply to now, but we have the answers. Let’s shed the shit that makes us believe otherwise.

Challenge

In reclamation work, often the barrier isn’t just to convince colonial systems to practice humanity, but rather the challenge is to convince our own people who have bought into coloniality in wholesale. We then have to create community of resisters, or support systems to keep sane or try to. Sadly though, many Inuit get lost in this quagmire of coloniality paying with their mental health and or turning to violence. Challenging involves constantly shifting, rethinking, negotiating through spaces and people who represent oppression. This, when we have had to repair, undo, or create our own family systems due to destruction of familial unions which translate to making it even more challenging to have unity as a community.  Healing and well-being work is part of the process.

The spaces where self-determination is most thriving is community driven projects around language, culture, arts and hunting or Inuit economy. There are spotty examples within our institutions but these institutions are products of systems that were created to destroy us, so they are either very slow to change or still largely resistant or volatile. The community projects are working because someone or a group of someones are working hard to make them work, with a lot of fight and heart.

I love seeing everyday acts of resistance, but also ways Inuit are showing their power through their efforts. When I talk about resistance it is the refusal to comply or conform to colonial agenda. The examples I see is everything from a young woman reclaiming her language through cultural activities such as amauti making, a young man learning land and hunting skills, to Inuit well-being work, to the beautiful art and tool making that is happening. Our young Inuit are amazingly creative and feisty. We must also admit many are struggling.

I also acknowledge people working within systems to attempt to turn the massive ship that has great momentum and force. This can be lonely and dispiriting work, I’ve been there. All in all, we must work constantly on bringing unity, to stay centered in our caring way to reclaim ourselves. So that we may “purposefully manifest our own collective, genuine self-determination based upon our narrative of success”. We owe it to our children, grandchildren and those coming after us. When I found out I was going to be a grandmother, I was overwhelmed with the idea that I was not ready to be a ‘wise’ person yet. I had a mini identity crisis for a moment. Then it came to me that we just need to simply love and provide good guidance. The answer is within us when we allow ourselves to feel through our thoughts. Self-determination sits in our core.

I was 20 years old when I entered the criminal court system. I was a paralegal trainee but also served as victim/witness assistant – explaining to those who have to appear in court how it works and guide them through it. I worked with Palluq Enuaraq, and we quickly became close working on some difficult cases at a time when big sexual assault matters started to go through the court system.

In my training one of the expectations was that I bow to the judge when I entered the court. I was never comfortable with it but did it. Later, as my career took me to young offenders, policy work then law school I started to understand the source of my discomfort.

By law school I refused to bow in court, without any announcement or explanation to anyone. Not because I disrespected the judges, I recognized they are there to do an important job, just like me. However, they are not superior to me as a human. As I saw it they have education and experience, which I will gain one day. As a principle, I do not bow to anyone that does not bow back. The expectation of Managers and Director type of positions in decolonial era should be not for them to serve as authority or autocractically but as collaborative leaders. We’ve seen how damaging authoritarian type of functioning can be.

Honorifics such as your majesty, lordship, honour, your worship and so on originate from conventions and practices of imperial power of Kings and Queens which are hierarchical and class based. The system had us believe imperial power comes from to divinity and that is why they can bestow honour to others. They uphold deference to privilege and power, treating the ‘high’ class as if they have automatic respectability that should not be questioned. Often, historically the higher the title the closer the proximity to the royal family or the establishment.

In law school there was discussion around the ‘Queen’s Counsel’ status that lawyer’s can receive which some claimed was arbitrary and depended largely on those connected, with the odd exception. This goes into how awards and recognitions are given out but I will limit the discussion to honorifics, as systemic awards and recognitions are worth a discussion on their own. I touch on it in Dear Qallunaat on how volunteer awards are given out to qallunaat who have the luxury of spare time, when we’re already busy looking after each other ‘voluntarily’ as a community and extended families.

What honorifics do is that they infer the ordinary people and lower class have no honour, only high society does. That there is an inherent higher and lower class. Then we can have the rhetoric of capitalist imperialist states that those that work hard can gain, to aspire to become honourable.

These honorifics are a crucial part of the social and political structure that defines and reinforces social stratification – who has authority to speak, make and decide laws and policies for example. The honorific system undermines personal authority and agency to those not considered in the honour club. And if you’re not in the honour club you have to work hard to get there (apparently). That is how power structures and social order are maintained.

I remember in the early days of Nunavut interpreter translators struggling with honorifics, as they are foreign culturally to us. It still seems ridiculous to see translations of words like ‘honourable’ now. Inuit have their own practices of respect and deference. Growing up we never called most adults especially Elders directly by their name, they were someone’s mom, grandmother, father grandfather. We’re not as strict with this practice anymore as we’ve become multi regional oriented and largely assimilated to western ways (on this), but us old timers still do it within our circles.

In any situation where expected respect and deference is set as in honorifics, the telling part is how the person wears that title. Do they expect to be called by their title? Do they expect special privileges associated with that title? It tells us whether they are functioning purely from ego and about upholding the system or not.

One small of act decolonization is not to buy into the honorific system, to reject it. If someone insists to be called by their title or expect special privileges because of it, it is a clear sign they shouldn’t be in that position.

(No title)

Half the battle to self-determination is ourselves, believing that we can. If self-determination starts with us, that means we must teach and learn to love ourselves. What does that even mean? Self-love means regard for our own happiness or advantage. Not to be mistaken by selfishness, conceitedness or egotism which are symptoms of self-hate disguised as self-love. Unless we learn to self love, we act for others approval and acceptance.

We are truest versions of ourselves when we are connected to the land, in fact our splendor and magnificence can be blinding. There is so much beauty in who we truly are, the loving, kind and kin oriented who people look after each other. We are nuna people.

We are also our truest versions of ourselves when we are with people who make us feel completely safe, who give us the intellectual and spiritual freedom in their presence. We are isuma people.

We are faced, though, with denigration and violence. Not of our own making, however , we now deal with the consequences in our hands. Surfacing as a product of our socialized self-hate, while often witnessing and experiencing trauma inducing conditions no person should be facing.

It is no accident that the impact of residential and federal day schools has resulted in generations of children who feel they have been emotionally neglected, starving for approval and attention! Any little bit of attention, we interpret as acceptance and love. For example, we are so elated with government announcements of spending on our basic needs. 

An Inuk child learns to disregard or hate who they are in their many days at school and consumption of pop culture in media. So negative or absent is the image presented to them, that they are conditioned to find relief only in close identification with whiteness, striving to emulate a good white life and abandoning themselves further as they move up the academic ladder facing more scarcity of representation as they go!

The effect is that we retreat into ourselves by becoming inward-looking or cliquee,  reasserting an unhealthy identity that we culture police or underplaying even eradicating our own identity. Creating spaces to practice our own culture and identity then becomes uncomfortable, feels fake or trying too hard. Unless, of course we are in our own world, with our safe people.

These coping mechanisms are symptoms of self-hate, of a deep inferiority complex that becomes very difficult to erase or deal with. The Colonial project  shows us that it’s working by indulging of romanticizing or co-opting us by defending it.

The manifestation of self-hate takes up so much space within our communities. It is the continuity of this pathology where decisions and actions that deprive us of the chance to make an impact in respect of self-worth, decolonization and reclamation. 

As much as people can blame the slow pace of the self-determination transformation agenda in Nunavut, it is equally important to determine the role of inflicted self-hatred as a factor in the process. Being truthful to self-worth takes courage to make us active participants in our decolonization, which will ultimately play a role in the reclamation of a currently fractured Nunavut. Until we create safety in numbers this space is very lonely and isolated. It takes intentional work!

Political systems are configured in such a way that we spend more time worrying about white people, the law and policies that have been created to serve them: who and what is an education for; who and what is an economy for; who are the social systems for; how is success defined. Reacting to white systems, we then find ourselves in a helpless psychosocial ‘space’ which clouds us and distract us from self-advancement.

Our conditioned colonized minds has made us adopt the colonizer’s ideologies, values and lives. French/Tunisian writer Albert Memmi explains “To refuse means either withdrawing physically from those conditions or remaining to fight and change them. … It is not easy to escape mentally from a concrete situation, to refuse its ideology while continuing to live with its actual relationships…. Rejection of self and love of another are common to all candidates for assimilation. … Love of the colonizer is subtended by a complex of feelings ranging from shame to self-hate”. A perfect damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario, with an internal strife.

Once you see through colonial systems and the power systems that maintain oppression, it is very difficult to unsee them. By staying silent you feel coopted and complacent, intellectually oppressed, suffocated and desperate to come out and breath. 

White or colonial systems are coercive. A very strong force that limit our identities, intellect, bodies and lives. Colonialism is motivated by the promise of plundering the environment and subjugating populations, it is not our path to salvation. 

The first step is to shed light on the situation. Once we recognize it, we can start to deal with it, reject it’s false narrative of our inferiority that feeds self-hate that disempowers.

In order to practice self-love Bell Hooks writes “One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others.” 

By imagining ourselves and finding safe spaces that are completely intellectually and spiritually safe, we can start asserting ourselves and practicing self-love. We need safety in numbers in key strategic spaces. We are worth staying as nuna and isuma people! After all, look at the intellect that has made us who we are, where we are in this stunning landscape!

One of the senses that I think that has been suppressed since the introduction of western thinking is intuition. Intuition in all it’s forms, including tapping into loved ones far away.

Growing up clairsentience (gut feeling), claircognizance (knowing) and precognition (foreseeing future) were part of common conversation. They still exist but it is not as common in conversation, with the introduced western thinking expectation there is nothing beyond the physical world.

Inuit are deeply spiritual. We are sensitive to our surroundings and energies, so many are easily spooked. Look where we live: expansive quiet spaces, so much space shared with other humans or animals, it is wide open to be able to see long distances, to bring awareness to our size compared to the universe. It makes one more aware of our body and spirit, and how that relates to other being and our surroundings. Our cold makes us feel our breath and breathing, our life. It is an environment for intuitive making. All of nature is really, we’ve just largely disconnected with it.

Still now Inuit rely heavily on social intuition, the ability to understand body language, cues and emotions. Many of us do not mind silence among company. We are sensitive to sighs, hyperness and sudden movements. Much of our socializing is not small talk (in fact many of us can’t stand small talk) but enjoy having silence too, as we can read emotional cues. We have grown unaccostumed to long silence though. Much of our ‘communication’ is through reading people and giving cues. There is comfort in just sharing calm energy.

I remember a story of someone visiting an Elder – I think it was my late ittuq Aariaq who did not say much like my grandfather – having tea, sitting a while, not saying anything and leaving with no words exchanged.

There is also shared intuition where someone will sense something is off and ask others who confirm they sense the same thing. Usually a prediction in a death or bad incident but not always.

Observant intuition is our super power as Inuit (Indigenous people) attuned to their environment, especially avid hunters who are out on the land frequently. They will notice subtle cues and patterns in their surroundings and make judgements accordingly. This is why it is important hunters are given opportunity to be out as frequently as they can, because being attuned to the environment is so important and tapping into that subconscious observation and intuitiveness which allows good judgment in our arctic environment which can lead to danger quickly. It provides safety.

The last few years there have been incidences of me tapping into people at an intuitive state. I have shared this with a friend not wanting it to be too out there. It happened again yesterday while on a conference call hence this post, I’ll get back to this.

The one that touched my heart so deeply a few years back was when I was reading the book From the Ashes by Jessie Thistle. Normally I cannot read books that speak about addictions as it is triggering having lived as a teen with the chaos and unpredictability of a parent with trauma and addictions. For some reason I could read Jessie Thistle’s book and it gave me such deep sympathy for the sources of addictions. What ended up happening was, in the second last chapter I started to predict what he will say next. It was the clearest and longest intuitive tapping into someone I’ve ever experienced.

So yesterday I’m on a conference call with amazing people doing amazing work. Including with someone whose work and thinking I deeply respect – I have so many intellectual heroes and am so lucky I get to work with so many of them.

As the call develops we started to have a really good conversation, and being of one mind. After a while when I thought of something one of two people I felt connected to on the call (and know in person) would speak my thoughts aloud. Then I started to predict what one of them would say next. All I thought was ‘oh nice’.

I really felt in that moment that when we allow space to be ourselves as Inuit, doing work to make our society flourish all our senses including our inuition can guide our spirit for good judgment. However that comes through.

I was a bit hesitant to share this, as part of my Inuit spiritual belief is that over sharing can dissolve intent or energy. But felt it important to have conversation about working from a deeper intuitive level. As we have now been taught to distrust anything outside the physical world. So many of our efforts ‘at work’ are surface and can in fact be disempowering. Imagine, doing affirming work and tapping deep into ourselves and connecting with others there too. What power that is!

Combatting deficit thinking doesn’t have to mean ignoring issues and avoiding systemic shifts.

In our politics and policy development, where is the idea that we should only be talking about good things happening coming from? Are people over simplifying strength-based approach? Which end up ignoring social issues that are the products of colonialism and structural racism? This then getting in the way of making structural changes that are much needed to shift power and deal with our issues on our terms?

We now recognize that deficit base thinking or view that we have inherent deficiencies is a problem. How some organizations have approached this is shifting the conversation to coming from strength base, but the problem is that this is still ignoring or overlooking structural issues. Are these ideas getting conflated or confused?

We live with structural barriers and social inequality that inhibit us protecting our culture and language, and generally representing ourselves on our terms to deal with legacy of colonialism that create poverty, addictions, self -harm, violence, poor educational attainment, and so on. The idea we should not think ‘badly’ about Inuit to avoid deficit thinking then gets interpreted as we should not talk about social issues.

Do we then assume we have to think that everything is fine and ignore all the issues that exist? It seems colonialism or structural racism and deficit thinking are two interconnected concepts that can perpetuate and maybe even exacerbate each other by forcing us to ignore them.

So let’s try to unpack this…

First, what is deficit thinking? Deficit thinking is a mindset that attributes the struggles or shortcomings of individuals or groups to inherent deficiencies or inadequacies within themselves, rather than considering external structural or systemic factors. An example is people saying ‘Inuit are lazy and don’t want to work’ hence the high rate of Inuit unemployment, rather than seeing the system has barriers for Inuit to enter and stay in employment.

Deficit thinking then blames the individual or group for their circumstances, focuses on their shortcomings whether it is their skills, capabilities, knowledge, language or culture. Deficit thinking downplays or ignores systemic barriers, inequalities, the impact of historical and ongoing racism and discrimination because is about fixing people rather than oppressive systems.

So let’s talk about these systemic barriers…

Colonialism is built on structural racism. Structural racism, also known as systemic racism, refers to the ways in which racial discrimination and inequality are built into and perpetuated by the social, economic, and political structures of western institutions, policies, and practices. Examples of structural racism include unequal access to quality education and healthcare, and discriminatory hiring practices, as said previously, and wage disparities.

A perfect example of unequal access to quality education is how the territorial government continues to fail at delivering Inuktut medium of education, assuming our language will take away from a superior colonial language. We then look at it from a deficit lens of our shortcomings as Inuit of having an inferior language, rather than looking at it as a systemic barrier to delivering Inuktut medium of education.

Structural racism also ignores the harm of atrocities, acculturation, and linguicide of colonialism, the trauma, emotional and psychological damage that we live within our families and communities.

Deficit thinking can reinforce social inequality by blaming marginalized groups for their circumstances. It distracts from addressing systemic issues and hinders efforts to address inequality and promote social justice. In order to combat deficit thinking and address social inequality we have to recognize and challenge assumptions, acknowledge systemic and structural barriers.

Even though a strength-based approach is on the right path to challenging deficit thinking, it is still not going far enough in challenging systems that perpetuate disempowerment. We tend to oversimplify issues to very binary way of thinking of good and bad. Deficit thinking bad, strength based good. When it is a bigger structural issue and nuanced maybe. How do we distinguish deficit thinking and structural issues? One, is the focus, is the focus on structural issue or individual or group deficiencies. Two, is causality, recognizing it is structural racism acknowledges external factors, whereas deficit thinking attributes problems to internal shortcomings. Third, is how the solution is oriented, addressing structural racism requires policy changes and systemic reforms, whereas deficit thinking often leads to individual-level interventions.

Not coming from deficit thinking should not lead to ignoring issues and power dynamics. Even though, acknowledging these mean more work and ignoring them means not having to acknowledge the disempowerment and the amount of work we need to do. We cannot continue to ignore the denial, deflection and distraction from the truth of structural racism therefore accountability to it.