“Everyone wears mitts”: Reflections on the use of metaphors in knowledge co-production in Nunavut, Canada

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Co-production has emerged as foundational to meaningful community-based Arctic research, placing Inuit leadership as central to knowledge creation. When founded upon strong relationships, co-production incorporates Indigenisation into research design, theoretical basis, data collection and analytical strategies. Here, we discuss and reflect on our experiences using metaphor as a bridge to meaningful engagement and knowledge co-production between southern-based researchers and an Inuit youth team. As a guiding metaphor for this project, we used the process of ‘making mitts’ (pualungnit in Inuktitut; pualuk meaning ‘mitten’), from identifying a need, to the action of crafting and using them. Our work indicates that metaphors can be very useful in facilitating knowledge co-production in a cross-cultural context by being adaptive to youth needs and overlaying the familiar and the unfamiliar. The introduction of the ‘mitt’ metaphor led to a completely novel creation process where youth contributors felt empowered, even compelled, to critique the work undertaken, freely and honestly without fear of repercussion or embarrassment. In discussing the process of sewing mitts, they stepped into the role of experts. As a result, the metaphor facilitated the creation of accessible and safe spaces within which to work and build relationships.