Territorializing piquhiit in Uqsuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, Canada): negotiating homeland through an Inuit normative system

ABSTRACT

While learning from Inuit knowledge of caribou in Uqsuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven, Nunavut), questions about legal norms led to larger conversations. Territoriality, or bordering, is comprised of material boundaries as well as cultural, remembered and imagined ones. Furthermore, most places, states and homelands emerge through the partitioning of localisms and outside influences. This negotiation may occur through discourses and practices at the border and beyond, and may be instigated formally by the state as well as by people in informal settings. To be sure, the law plays a role in the belonging and governing aspects of bordering. For legal geographers, the law is also understood to be partly generated in informal and everyday spaces. As Uqsuqtuurmiut (‘people of Uqsuqtuuq’) shared norms concerning the treatment of people, the land/sea/ice and non-humans, we learned of piquhiit (‘Inuit rules’). Piquhiit are part of everyday and informal norm- and territory-making. Associated cultural and regulatory activities contribute to the territorialization of Inuit territory or homeland, and these spatialities recursively buttress piquhiit. Partitioning is always informed by a local perspective, and here that means autonomy and relationality (Inuit governance). Place and identity are negotiated through varying degrees of adaptation to outside forces: fluidity, agreeableness, and dissidence.

KEYWORDS:

• borders
• law
• collective identity
• territory
• Inuit
• Nunavut

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors are grateful to the Uqsuqtuurmiut who contributed their time, guidance and insights to this project. They thank the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, the Elders’ Qaggivik, the Hamlet of Gjoa Haven, Qikirtaq High School, the Tahiurtiit (Justice) Committee, the Hunters and Trappers Association, the District Education Authority, the Nattilik Heritage Centre, the Government of Nunavut and Rebecca Mearns. They also extend their thanks to Stephanie Pyne, for interview transcription, and Alex de Paiva, for the map. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Through a ‘process of collective political identity construction and institution building’ (Shadian, 2010, p. 487), Inuit have pursued autonomy from and/or integration with the state at the national (e.g., land claims-based co-management regimes; White, 2020, p. 4) and international scales (e.g., Inuit Circumpolar Council) (Shadian, 2010, pp. 498, 500). The account of bordering in the instant article presents another scale of governance and type of institution: Inuit (specifically Uqsuqtuurmiut) territory or homeland and its normative system.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Standard Research Grant]. Additional funding was provided by Carleton University to Gita Ljubicic, and by the University of Alberta to Sean Robertson. Nunavut Scientific Research License #04 058 12N-M. Ethics approvals: Carleton University (12-1439) and University of Alberta (Pro00040132).