Abstract
Inuit residents of the Canadian Arctic balance a commitment to the land and to land-based traditions with full engagement in governance across different scales of decision-making. In this article, I suggest that thinking with and through 'affect' offers a promising approach to conceptualizing the dynamic role of Inuit knowledge across these different scales. Food sharing in remote Inuit settlements tangibly demonstrates the affective dimensions of Inuit knowledge, reflecting practices rooted in social and ethical relations with land, animals, and human community. Affect also informs the role of Inuit knowledge in international environmental negotiations. I explore this relationship in the work of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), an organization that advocated for a ban on persistent organic pollutants (POP) in the negotiations leading up to the Stockholm Convention. Facilitated by the gift of an Inuit carving, ICC shared a moral and ethical perspective that helped connect negotiators to the physical harms caused by pollutants. Drawing on the philosophy of former ICC Chair Sheila Watt-Cloutier and the non-capitalist framework of J.K. Gibson-Graham (2006), I examine the role this gift played in the POPs negotiations. I conclude that thinking through affect offers new ways of conceptualizing the emergent possibilities of environmental politics and practice.
Highlights
In June of 1998, the Inter-Government Negotiating Committee Toward a Global Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) met for the first time in Montreal
On the first day of the meeting, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuk2 woman from northern Quebec who was President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council of Canada, described the importance of country food, or food from the land, for Inuit and other Canadian northern aboriginal peoples, stating: To sustain ourselves during the last century of rapid change, we have treasured more than ever our land and the food that comes from our land
In the POPs negotiations, scientific studies of human health and environmental risk were critical in prompting national governments to enter into negotiations in the first place (Shearer and Han 2003), and Inuit as well as environmental activists drew on science to shape their interventions and arguments (Fenge 2003)
Summary
In June of 1998, the Inter-Government Negotiating Committee Toward a Global Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) met for the first time in Montreal. Eli's story demonstrates how Inuit knowledge—knowledge of the land, animals, hunting, and sharing food—is part of a web of action and relationship His rush of happiness at the floe edge where he hunted his first seal had to do with many things: with his uncle's attention and mentorship, with being out on the land and mastering a skill that is central to male Inuit identity, and with the knowledge that he could provide food to his extended family. From this perspective, Inuit knowledge cannot be divorced from economic life, kinship, the land, animals, or emotional experience; it is fed by and feeds into each of these
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