27 March 2025 | 16:00 - 17:30 (MDT)
Open Session - HYBRID
Room: UMC Third Floor - 382
Organisers: Haliehana Stepetin (Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, USA); Tatiana Degai (University of Victoria, Canada); Beaska Niillas (Sami Parliament)
Session Description:
As Arctic science and research becomes more popular amidst a global climate crisis disproportionately felt by Arctic Indigenous Peoples, this session shifts power to Indigenous Peoples and their Knowledge Systems as methods for co-creating livable Arctic futures. Livable Arctic futures must prioritize the First Peoples of the Arctic and Indigenous Knowledge systems that already contain scientific adaptation strategies. Hegemonic institutional approaches that conduct Arctic science and research tend to leave out Indigenous Knowledge systems as irrelevant and inferior to “western” science, relegating Indigenous knowledge keepers and creators to “artisans” and Indigenous arts to “handicrafts” that contain no useful scientific information. This session confronts the colonial disciplinary silos that divide knowledge into confined categories to convey the strength of interrelated ways of knowing and sharing within Indigenous Knowledge systems while uplifting Indigenous arts as science.
Led by three Indigenous artists and scientists, we share the practices and praxes—ranging from visual arts, storytelling, and performance—to challenge colonial understandings of science. We identify how Indigenous practices from Alaska to Russia to Sapmi are scientific Indigenous methodologies guided by thousands of years of Protocol that has shaped our sustainable, continuous thriving presence in the Arctic since time immemorial. By centering Indigenous Knowledge systems, we dismantle colonial disciplinary silos that marginalize Indigenous perspectives in Arctic science spaces.
We invite researchers, Indigenous Knowledge holders, artists, policymakers, and community stakeholders to engage in dialogue aimed at advancing decolonized approaches to Arctic science, especially as it pertains to Research Priority Team 5: Co-Production and Indigenous-led methodologies.