Pathways to nickel mining employment among Inuit women in Nunavik, Canada and Kanak women in New Caledonia: A comparative study

Abstract

This paper compares Inuit and Kanak women's participation in nickel mining employment in Canada and New Caledonia through a focused examination of three nickel mines: two in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada and one in the Northern Province of New Caledonia. Since the recent construction of two new nickel refineries, New Caledonia has experienced a dramatic feminization of its mining workforce across traditional mining employment and service-related employment. In Canada, meanwhile, despite targeted efforts by industry and community organizations to facilitate Inuit women's entry into nickel mining, women's participation in mining remains relatively low and stagnant. This paper first presents a comparison of employment data at all three mines to illustrate the dramatic divergences in demographic composition of the workforces. Second, drawing on interviews with key informants and historical context, we explore key factors that explain this divergence in Indigenous women's employment. We argue that Kanak women's access to mining employment is enabled by, one, the central place of mining in Kanak struggles for self-determination and, two, the daily commuting structure at the mine. In Nunavik, by contrast, limited Inuit control over mining development and the fly-in fly-out employment structure limit Inuit women's access to mining jobs. Despite these divergences, however, Indigenous women in both contexts face gendered expectations related to social reproduction that pose logistical and social barriers to their long-term participation in the industry.