Stories of Love and Loss: Recommitting to Each Other and the Land

Stories of Love and Loss: Recommitting to Each Other and the Land By Tommy Akulukjuk, Nigora Erkaeva, Derek Rasmussen, & Rebecca A. Martusewic

Developing an Inuit-Specific Framework for Culturally Relevant Health Indicators Incorporating Gender-Based Analysis

At the request of the Bureau of Women’s Health and Gender Analysis (BWHGA) at Health Canada, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada (Pauktuutit) developed a framework for an Inuit-specific culturally relevant gender-based analysis (GBA) of health determinants. The Inuit-specific framework and follow-up health determinants report show that Inuit-specific health data needs to be separated from other data. The framework also proposes a thematic listing of culturally relevant health determinants for Inuit. The framework and health report show some of the gaps in gender-based analysis of Inuit health indicators and determinants that should be addressed. The framework was well received by Inuit in its first trial use in 2008

The Priced versus the Priceless

A talk to the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University at the invitation of Jim Scott, Nov. 9, 2007 drawing on the insights of Ivan Illich, Gustavo Esteva, Karl Polanyi, Wolfgang Sachs (The Development Dictionary), CB Macpherson, Tommy Akulukjuk, Annie Quirke, Kowesa Ettitiq and others, as well as Buddhist theory and meditation, especially the Four Immeasurables

“Non-Indigenous Culture” - Implications of a Historical Anomaly

There has never been a non-Indigenous civilization before in history. What are the effects of peoples who move location on average every 5 or 6 years, with little or no knowledge of the local plants, animals, waterways and lands, and no loyalty to them? When I've asked classrooms of university students: 'Where do you want to be buried?'--non-Indigenous students sit silent; usually only the Indigenous students have an answer: 'My traditional homeland'

Qallunology101: A lesson plan for the Non Indigenous

Some thoughts about what makes non-Indigenous people so unusual--there has never been a non-Indigenous civilization before in history. What are the effects of peoples who move location on average every 5 or 6 years, with little or no knowledge of the local plants, animals, waterways and lands, and no loyalty to them? Given the worldwide impact of non-Indigenous peoples and their economic system, why are there no Departments of non-Indigenous Studies? This article proposes a draft curriculum

Reconciliation-to-forgive versus reconciliation-to-forget.

A discussion contrasting 'Remembrance Day' when European-Americans recall and commemorate historical events vs 'reconciliation', when European-Americans and Canadians want 'closure', want to forget our historical oppression of Indigenous peoples or 'put history behind us'. Text based on an invited talk given at Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions, October 2000, during a forum on "Justice before Reconciliation in Canada" hosted by Cultural Survival International (Cambridge MA)

Forty Years of Struggle and Still no Right to Inuit Education in Nunavut

Describes 40 (now 50) years of Inuit advocacy and attempts to change Qalunaat colonial education system to an Inuit-language K-12 education system that reflects Inuit values. Documents moves made by majority non-Inuit managers in the public government to prevent & obstruct Inuit language education

Some honest talk about Non-Indigenous Education

Euro-Canadians try and play it both ways when we use the word “education.” On the one hand we claim open-mindedness by asserting platitudes like ‘all societies have education’ — including Indigenous societies. And on the other hand, we then frequently refer to Indigenous people as “uneducated”--casually denigrating them because they weren’t admitted into or didn’t graduate out of the deliberately narrow funnel we've invented: European institutional education. This can be termed the “Restaurant Theory of Education”, wherein we think of the relationship between Education (scarce) and cultural trans-mission (wide) as being like the relationship between restaurants and food. Restaurants can be found in most Euro-Canadian neighborhoods—as can schools—butt we don't believe that without restaurants we would starve. If we come across a society without schools, then we assume that there has to be some sort of Education system hidden in the social structure somewhere and we just have to suss it out. Yet if we don’t see restaurants in another civilization we don’t immediately assume that they must have a restaurant system hidden in their food relations somewhere

"My Father Was Told to Talk to the Environment First Before Anything Else" - Arctic Environmental Education in the Language of the Land

Chapter examines the importance of Indigenous languages and the connection between ecology and language, focusing on the Nunavut Territory where “the land speaks Inuktitut” . The chapter was constructed from conversations and e-mails between Inuk writer and researcher Tommy Akulukjuk, and independent researcher Derek Rasmussen, who lived in Nunavut for 12 years