Inuit research strategy launched

OTTAWA — The organization that represents 65,000 Inuit in Canada is calling for an end to years of exploitative research based in a colonial history that has ignored the well-being of Indigenous people in the North.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or ITK, has released a research strategy encouraging researchers and research institutions to partner with Inuit in projects that better reflect the needs and priorities of northern peoples.

The strategy acknowledges the racism and exclusion that began with the first scientific forays into the North, which viewed Inuit as bystanders or research subjects and centred around priorities that were set by outsiders to Inuit Nunangat, which is the preferred Inuit term for the Arctic.