Perspectives on “Community” with Inuit Living in Southern Quebec

ABSTRACT

What is a community? This seemingly simple question emerged at the outset of the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut? (QS) research project on Inuit health in southern Quebec, led in partnership with the Southern Quebec Inuit Association. The question finds its salience in the rapid growth of a southern Inuit population in cities across Canada, a population that has distinct and significant health needs. After early qualitative research, we came to doubt whether the term community adequately characterizes the situation of the roughly 2,000 Inuit living in the South. Thus, this article examines the discourse of community. Specifically, we present an analysis of two schools of thought on the subject: first, the notion of community from classic academic work in urban geography by the Chicago School; and second, inuuqatigiitsiarniq (living well together), which comes from an Inuit system of values and model of health. We first describe the ethnographic data upon which our analysis is drawn and introduce key concepts. Then, we identify conceptual shortcomings in the Chicago School’s notion of community and describe how inuuqatigiitsiarniq expands and nuances the concept. Finally, we discuss the potential of using both concepts to foster a refined understanding of relational health for Inuit living in Montreal.

[Inuktitut: Nunavik-Ungava dialect] ᓱᓇᐅᕚᑦ ᓄᓇᓖᑦ? ᑖᓐᓇ ᐱᔭᕆᐊᑭᑦᑑᔭᕐᑐᖅ ᐊᐱᕐᖁᓯᖅ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᐅᓲᖅ ᐃᒫᒃ ᖃᓄᐃᒃᑳᑦ ᓯᕿᓂᕐᒥᐅᑦ? Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut? (QS) ᖃᐅᔨᓇᓱᐊᕐᓂᒧᑦ ᐱᓇᓱᐊᕐᑐᐃᑦ ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᖃᓄᐃᖏᑦᓯᐊᕐᓂᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᖃᓪᓗᓈᑦ ᓄᓇᖓᓂ ᑯᐯᒻᒥ, ᐱᓇᓱᖃᑎᖃᖃᑦᑕᐳᑦ ᑯᐯᒻᒥ ᓯᕿᓂᕐᒦᑦᑐᓂᒃ ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᑲᑐᑦᔨᖃᑎᒌᖏᓐᓂᒃ. ᐊᐱᖅᑯᑎᑦᓴᖃᕈᓐᓀᐳᒍᑦ ᐊᒥᓱᕈᖅᐸᓪᓕᐊᓗᐊᕐᓂᖏᓐᓄᑦ ᖃᓪᓗᓈᑦ ᓄᓇᖓᓃᑦᑐᑦ ᓄᓇᓕᕐᔪᐊᓂ ᑲᓇᑕᓕᒫᒥ, ᐊᒥᓲᓂᖏᑦ ᓇᓗᓀᕐᓯᕗᑦ ᖃᓄᐃᖏᑦᓯᐊᕈᑎᑦᓴᒥᒃ ᑭᖕᖒᒪᑦᓯᒪᑕ. ᖃᐅᔨᓇᓱᑲᐱᓚᐅᕐᓱᑕ, ᖁᓚᒐᓚᓕᕐᖁᒍᑦ ᐅᓇ ᓄᓇᓖᑦ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᓈᕐᓯᒪᒐᓗᐊᕐᒪᖔᑦ ᓇᓗᓀᕐᓯᓗᓂ ᖃᓄᐃᓕᖓᓂᐅᔪᓄᑦ ᐃᓄᓐᓄᑦ 2,000ᑦ ᒥᑦᓵᓃᑦᑐᓄᑦ ᖃᓪᓗᓈᑦ ᓄᓇᖓᓃᑦᑐᓄᑦ, ᑖᓐᓇᓗ ᐊᓪᓚᓯᒪᔪᖅ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖃᕐᐳᖅ ᓄᓇᓕᓐᓂᒃ. ᐱᓗᐊᕐᑐᒥᒃ, ᓇᓗᓀᕐᓯᒐᓱᐊᕐᓱᑕ ᐃᓕᓴᕐᕖᓐᓂᒃ ᒪᕐᕉᓐᓂᒃ ᑕᒪᑦᓱᒥᖓ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖃᕐᑎᓪᓗᑕ: ᓯᕗᓪᓕᒥᒃ, ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖃᕐᓂᖅ ᓄᓇᓕᓐᓂᒃ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖃᕐᒪᑦ ᐃᓕᓴᕆᐊᓕᓐᓂᒃ ᓄᓇᓕᓐᓂᒃ ᑕᒫᓂ ᓯᑳᒎᑉ ᐃᓕᓴᕕᖓᓂ, ᐁᑉᐸᖓᓂᒃ, inuuqatigiitsiarniq ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᕆᓲᖓᓂᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᖃᓄᐃᖏᑦᓯᐊᕐᓂᒧᑦ ᒪᓕᒐᑦᓴᓯᐊᒥᒃ. ᓯᕗᓪᓕᒥᒃ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖃᕐᓯᒪᒐᑦᑕ ᑲᑎᕐᓱᓯᒪᔭᑦᑎᓐᓂ ᓇᓗᓀᕐᓯᒪᒻᒪᑕ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐱᓪᓚᕆᐅᔪᒧᑦ ᑐᕌᖓᑎᑦᓱᑎᒍ. ᑕᒐᓕ, ᓇᓗᓀᕐᓯᒪᔭᕗᑦ ᑎᑭᐅᑎᖕᖏᓗᐊᕐᑑᔮᕐᑐᖅ ᓯᑳᒎᑉ ᐃᓕᓴᕕᖓᓂ ᓇᓗᓀᕐᓯᒪᔭᕗᑦ ᓄᓇᓖᓚᔪᖅ ᐊᒻᒪ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᐅᓯᒪᑦᓱᓂ inuuqatigiitsiarniq-ᒥᒃ ᑐᑭᖓᓂᒃ ᐃᓗᓕᖏᓐᓂᓗ. ᑭᖑᓪᓕᐹᒥᒃ, ᐅᖃᖃᑎᒌᑦᓯᒐᑦᑕ ᑕᒪᖏᑦ ᐊᑐᖃᑦᑕᓗᒋᒃ ᓇᓗᓀᕐᓯᒍᑎᑦᓴᐅᒍᓐᓇᓂᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᑐᑭᓯᐅᒪᒍᑕᐅᖁᓪᓗᒋᒃ ᖃᓄᐃᖏᑦᓯᐊᕐᓂᒨᓕᖓᔪᒧᑦ ᑐᕌᖓᓂᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᐃᓄᓐᓄᑦ ᒪᓐᑐᔨᐊᓪᓚᒥ ᓄᓇᖃᕐᑐᓄᑦ.

KEYWORDS:

• urban Inuit
• southern Quebec
• Chicago School
• community
• Inuit concept of health
• inuuqatigiitsiarniq

In 2017, the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut? (How are those in the South?) (QS) project team and the Southern Quebec Inuit Association (SQIA) conducted a census of Inuit living in southern Quebec, which found that approximately 2,300 people the southern part of the province as their permanent home (Fletcher et al. 2022, 4). This number is more than twice the figure reported by Statistics Canada in its 2016 census (Statistics Canada 2017) and speaks to the large number of Inuit living in the South and their statistical invisibility. Furthermore, we estimate that approximately 90% of the Inuit in southern Quebec live in and around Montreal, which puts the Montrealmiut (Inuit who live in Montreal, in Inuktitut) population in the same range as the largest communities of Nunavik, the Inuit land claim region that constitutes roughly the northern third of the province. It is also clear that the Inuit population in the South is growing rapidly: from 2006 to 2011, the urban¹ Inuit population in Canada increased by 61.9% (Statistics Canada 2017), mostly by migration from all over the Inuit Nunangat. This pattern is visible in all provinces. For example, researchers have noted an increase of the Inuit population living in southern Manitoba—indeed, their 2016 census shows a higher number of Inuit living in southern Manitoba (785 people) than the census done by Statistics Canada (610 people) the same year (Lavoie et al. 2021, 13).

The growing urban Inuit population and significant movement of people into southern cities suggests that novel cultural and social arrangements are being forged in new spaces. As a team of health researchers, cultural anthropologists, and community service providers, we have frequently discussed the notion of community and how it is constituted in this rapidly changing context. This is not a purely academic question, although it is certainly a classic issue in many disciplines. Rather, the question of what constitutes community has significant repercussions for social, familial, and individual health and well-being. Whatever community may be, the many material and social qualities that are commonly thought to constitute it are important determinants of health. Through the analysis of the data collected from multiple qualitative methods, the QS project has made several observations regarding those qualities. Particularly, our team notes that the southern Inuit population is heterogeneous, highly mobile, and scattered. In some places and at some times, the population is well integrated; and in other places and times, southern Inuit are overwhelmed by urban life. How do Inuit living in the South understand and live their relations with each other, and with others? According to which criteria should those ties be described and understood, and how can the complex and changing social dynamics in the South be characterized? Focusing on Inuit living in and around Montreal, this article presents our reflections on the concept of community from within Inuit epistemology, from urban studies, and from our own perspectives as community members, allies, researchers, and colleagues. First, we present the qualitative data on which our discussion draws by introducing the QS project and its findings regarding social ties among southern Inuit. Then, we explore the notion of community as defined by the Chicago School, as well as the Inuit concept of inuuqatigiitsiarniq (“living well together” in Inuktitut). We then examine the two concepts by putting them into perspective with the findings of the QS project, evaluate their complementarity, and conclude by considering how they contribute to a refined understanding of the relational health of Inuit living in Montreal. In doing so, we aim to address both conceptual issues and the concrete implications of using these concepts to better understand the realities of the Inuit of Montreal and to support the development of culturally specific services.

Background

The Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut? (How are the People in the South?) (QS) Health Survey

The QS project is a community-based participatory research project co-led by the SQIA and a research team based at Université Laval and McGill University. The project aims to describe the health and well-being of Siqinirmiut (”southern Inuit” in Inuktitut), build capacity to address community needs, and support the development of culturally specific services in the South. Using a sequential mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology, the project’s overarching goal is to create a factually accurate, culturally relevant, and practically actionable set of results and recommendations to describe and address the health of Siqinirmiut. Data collected in the first phase of the study, conducted from June 2019 to March 2020, are used here to explore the discourse of community—an idea that is at once self-explanatory and, as we have come to find, quite difficult to pin down. Qualitative data were collected during 38 individual interviews, two photovoice sessions, four focus groups, and three walk-along interviews conducted in French, English, and Inuktitut, mainly in Montreal but also in Sherbrooke, Quebec City, and Val d’Or. The participants ranged in age from 16 to 61 years, and two-thirds of them were women. They came from the four regions of Inuit Nunangat, although most were from Nunavik, and some participants were born and grew up in southern Quebec. Most of those who were originally from the North had been living in the South for more than ten years (Fletcher et al. 2022, 7–9). All interviews and activities were audio recorded, transcribed, and entered into NVivo qualitative software. The material was then coded using an inductive emergent thematic process. Our analysis focuses on the data collected among Montrealmiut specifically.

The Montrealmiut: A Qualitative Overview

The analysis of the qualitative data collected during the QS project reveals five dynamic qualities related to the way relationships are lived and perceived among Siqinirmiut. First, Inuit living in the South come from all over the Inuit Nunangat, which results in a culturally and linguistically diverse population. According to the 2017 census conducted by the QS team, 1,735 Inuit are from Nunavik, 360 from Nunavut, and 100 from other regions (Nunatsiavut, Inuvialuit, southern Quebec, etc.) (Fletcher et al. 2022, 4). Montrealmiut thus speak different dialects of the Inuit language (mainly Inuktitut and Inuttitut) and have different cultural practices depending on their region of origin. While the majority are originally from one of the four land claim regions that make up Inuit Nunangat, some have never lived in the North. This diversity of origin has produced a broad spectrum of linguistic skills and knowledge of Inuit cultural practices in Montreal. Some participants who had weaker Inuit linguistic and cultural skills (mostly those who were adopted or born in the South, or who have lived in the South for a long time) reported sometimes feeling discriminated against or excluded by other urban Inuit. Moreover, while bonding with Inuit from different regions in a positive and harmonious way was common, some participants pointed out that it was easier to connect with people from their hometowns and to establish comfortable, comforting relationships with them more quickly. The sense of community in the South was shaped by previous experiences of community and various levels of belonging to them (Fletcher et al. 2022, 34–35).

Second, Montrealmiut described various motivations for their moves to the South, which impact the planned and actual lengths of their stay. Some participants foresaw their stay in Montreal as short term, while others planned to stay for a few years. Some people were born in the city, or moved to the South many years earlier, and thus consider Montreal their home, or at least a permanent place to live. Reasons given for moving South included looking for employment opportunities, pursuing education and training, seeking urgent, long-term, or specialized health services (for oneself or as an escort for a family member), and, especially for women, escaping abusive and dangerous living situations in their home communities. Inuit moving to southern provinces across Canada share similar motivations, as is noted by Lavoie and her colleagues in their study of Inuit living in southern Manitoba (Lavoie et al. 2021).

Some people cannot go back up North for financial, practical, or safety reasons, and therefore stay in the South, choosing “the lesser evil of the two evils” (man, 31, in Montreal for a few years), or because they come to prefer urban life. As one woman (36, in Montreal for a few years) explained, “I’m a self-proclaimed city girl; there’s no way you can get the city out of me. And I absolutely feel Inuk and it doesn’t change anything about my life and my identity.” Regardless of the circumstances surrounding why they came to Montreal, the main motivation for Siqinirmiut to move to the South was to improve their general well-being. While it might be tempting to draw some parallels between recent patterns of migration and the relocations that happened in the North in the 1950s, we want to stress the importance of Inuit agency in the contemporary processes in which the QS project is working. The relocations of Inuit families and communities in the 1950s were forced by the government of Canada to serve geopolitical interests at stake at that time, without considering the damages they would have on Inuit collective and individual well-being. It is true that most Inuit currently living in the South also suffer from the negative consequences of colonialism, but most of them deliberately made the decision to move to improve their life situations.

Third, living throughout the city and its boroughs, Inuit choose their places of residence according to a variety of factors, including proximity to services and other Inuit. A significant portion of the Inuit population live in the West Island suburbs of Lachine, Lasalle, St-Laurent, and Dorval, where the Inuit organizations Makivik Corporation and Kativik Ilisarniliriniq (School Board) first established their offices after the signing of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (1975). People experiencing homelessness tend to gather downtown, especially around Cabot Square and Place des Arts, where shelters and other community resources are easily accessible.

Fourth, there is little in the way of Inuit-specific infrastructure, services, places, or activities in Montreal. The SQIA, whose mandate is to foster the community well-being of Siqinirmiut by promoting a balanced lifestyle, community engagement, and cultural pride, was created in 2017 as the first organization to represent the Inuit of southern Quebec. While it is appreciated by and helpful to southern Inuit, the SQIA is a young association with few resources and little community infrastructure. Without these kinds of institutions, Siqinirmiut have limited opportunities to connect with each other, speak an Inuit language, and participate in Inuit cultural activities. In addition, while community-based programs are offered in some northern villages, as described by Greene and Ulujuk Zawadski (2022) regarding education in Nunavut, the SQIA, like other Inuit organizations in southern cities, faces the challenge of developing programs for Siqinirmiut who come from all over Inuit Nunangat or who were born and raised in southern Canada.

Finally, participants made a clear distinction between Inuit who have drug and alcohol use problems and those who do not. People with substance use problems tend to keep company, while those who do not often try to avoid them. Those participants who avoided other Inuit who were consuming drugs and alcohol said that their actions come from a profound discomfort with encountering people who were inebriated, especially when they were family members or friends. The social distance was not meant as judgment, though some drug and alcohol users felt it to be so; instead, distancing was a means to avoid discomfort and, for some, memories of when they themselves had similar problems (Fletcher et al. 2022, 21).

These findings are consistent with those made by Patrick and Tomiak (2008), who worked with Inuit living in Ottawa for several years. When they describe the existence of an Inuit community in Ottawa, they underline that “it cannot be understood as fixed or geographically bounded. Instead, it must be conceptualised more abstractly, in terms of social networks, cultural practices, and institutional landscapes” (Patrick and Tomiak 2008, 64). These observations are also in accordance with those made by anthropologist Nobuhiro Kishigami (1997, 2014), one of the very few researchers who has worked closely with the Montreal urban Inuit population. Kishigami’s work explores Inuit identities, social networks, reasons to move to the South, and homelessness. He proposes three broad categories of Inuit living in Montreal, based on the reasons for their migration and their positions in the city as students, employees, or homeless people (86). Mark Watson (2017) has also explored community identity among Inuit in Montreal as part of an action research project that involved creating an Inuktitut radio show called Nipivut (“our voice” in Inuktitut). In his nuanced description of the several groups of Inuit who live in and around Montreal, the plurality of their situations serves as a “neutral space” (202) through which people may situate themselves as people of shared Indigeneity and as citizens of a complex metropolis.

Searching for the Inuit Community in Montreal

In our interview questions, we used the term community unreflexively. For example, we asked: “When you need help or support from your community, what do you do?” and “What are the important issues facing the community?” Responses to these questions revealed a fundamental dilemma: community, which we thought to be well-defined (the project aim is to describe the health of the southern Inuit community!), was not self-explanatory for Siqinirmiut. We had been reproducing the assumptions of many others in research and government for whom community exists and is taken for granted, without asking whether the idea fits with the people and their perspectives on their own relationships. In this respect, the need for definition and recognition of an Inuit community stems from external constraints imposed, often unknowingly, by local authorities. Indeed, southern Inuit are seeking services that are culturally specific to their situation and distinct from those offered to northern Inuit by regional and territorial health authorities and for which Siqinirmiut are not eligible. But for public-health decision makers to support the development of culturally specific services, it is commonly expected that there is a well-defined and established “community” through which the services may be accessed.

Participants, however, were unequivocal in their views: there is not one tightly woven Inuit community in Montreal. Although Inuit like to socialize with each other, the Inuit population is, in the words of the participants, “fragmented” and “fractured.” As one participant explained, “I don’t think Montreal is great for it [sense of belonging to a community], considering the number of Inuit that there are here. I don’t know, it feels very disconnected” (man, 34, in Montreal for more than 15 years).

Confronted with our biases about the existence of an Inuit community in Montreal, we decided to explore the concept of community to better understand if and how it might influence our understanding of Siqinirmiut health and well-being. To do so, we turned to the work of the Chicago School, a group of sociologists whose work has been foundational to the development of this concept since the beginning of the 20^th century (Hannerz 1980, 304). Its members made detailed conceptual propositions, anchored in empirical observations, regarding the movement of people between rural and urban settings, the formation of urban communities, and the experience of becoming and belonging to groups. We explored several parallels and differences between the Chicago School's ideas and the Inuit concept of inuuqatigiitsiarniq to bring both concepts to a more complete understanding of urban Inuit relational health. This effort is at once theoretical and pragmatic. As Montrealmiut begin to receive attention from different levels of government and as the efforts of the SQIA and other organizations to foster community building (which were severely truncated by the restrictions of COVID-19) begin to bear fruit, working with a fully formed and culturally relevant concept of community will allow more effective and long-lasting community and health promotion efforts to be made.

Western and Inuit Concepts for Understanding Relationships among People

The Chicago School: The Notion of Community

The Chicago School emerged in the early decades of the 20^th century as an important intellectual movement that sought to describe the relationship between people and cities with an emphasis on sociological and ethnic diversity. Chicago School members owe their initial thoughts on community to German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel ([1903] 1990), who studied the extraordinary growth of Berlin in the early 1900s. He noted that new city dwellers experienced new social arrangements, having moved away from their villages where primary family, religious, and proximity ties were the basis of authority and social control. Simmel suggested that the urban environment, coupled with great mobility, is synonymous with an unparalleled freedom, and that people come together according to other, infinitely variable criteria (e.g., common places of origin, languages, interests).

Robert Ezra Park, one of Simmel’s students in Berlin, shared the German sociologist’s ideas about the city and city behavior with his colleagues when he joined the University of Chicago in 1914. These scholars were influenced by Herbert Spencer, Auguste Comte, and Charles Darwin, early theorists in ecology, biology, and evolution (Kuklick [1980] 1990, 344), and the many contemporary empirical studies of urban marginalized populations that confirmed the impacts of the city as a new form of social organization. Chicago School members developed the concept of urban ecology, a metaphor that suggests that the city is an ecosystem, and its growth is comparable to that of social metabolism.

In their view, the city’s planning provides for a certain top-down organization of space by regulating the location and function of real estate, but despite these plans, many elements are not controllable, such as the tendency of people to gather according to their interests. Indeed, the Chicago School explained that technological changes in communication and transportation at the turn of the 20^th century enabled people to move and gather according to their languages or cultures, professions or economic status, and to exclude others from those associations (Park [1925] 1990, 99). Throughout their work, Chicago School members argued that various forms of urban communities took shape in geographically delimited spaces (neighborhoods, “villages,” “moral regions,” “colonies,” “natural areas” (Thomas [1923] 1990; Burgess [1925] 1990; Park [1926] 1990; Wirth [1928] 1998), but that the principles of the urban ecology metaphor apply to all of these spaces. Their creation was not planned, nor was it always desired (as in the case of ghettos or slums). Each gathering has its own characteristics, ways of life, histories, structures, and physical elements, and fulfills a specific economic function within the city as a whole. The urban community is a state of mind for each individual who inhabits it. It is a space that forms personality and cultivates shared ideals. Inhabitants share the same experiences, memories, feelings, attitudes, and ideals while participating in common activities and pursuing common objectives. The relationships that take place within that community appear to its inhabitants as natural. Even if there are differences in status within the community, each member has a functional place and role. Institutions may emerge and normalize specific traits of the groups they represent (Wirth [1928] 1998; Kruckeberg and Starck 1988). City dwellers can move from area to area, but they must adapt their behavior “more or less completely to the conditions and code of the area in which they settle” (Park [1929] 1990, 176). In this context, Park suggested, increased mobility, such as that found in the modern city, affects the quality of life (positively, through the newfound freedom, or negatively, through increased exposure to vice and crime) and promotes secondary relationships and “the fascinating, but dangerous experience” (Park [1925] 1990, 125) of belonging to several groups.

By recognizing the freedom of agency and the rapidity of social contact, the Chicago School’s theories are classics in urban studies today—even if the fluidity of connections, identities, and belonging has increased since then. Its members offer a definition for ideas (such as community) that are widely used in everyday popular and bureaucratic language. However, an examination of their concepts in the light of a post-colonial and urban Indigenous context provides an opportunity to update and decenter classic urban theories from Western epistemologies and invite new elements to be considered in their use in academia and beyond.

An Emic Concept: Inuuqatigiitsiarniq

The QS health survey is anchored in an Inuit model of health developed during the Qanuilirpitaa? (How are we now?) health survey conducted in 2017 in Nunavik (Fletcher et al. 2021). The model is often referred to by its acronym, the “IQI model.” It is composed of three dimensions—ilusirsusiarniq, qanuinngisiarniq, and inuuqatigiitsiarniq—which together describe health from the perspective of Nunavimmiut experience, language, and culture. Ilusirsusiarniq refers to the body—its functioning and physical condition. Qanuinngisiarniq refers to general health and well-being and the absence of illness and concern. In this article, we are particularly interested in the third dimension, inuuqatigiitsianiq, which refers to “harmonious relations among people who share a place. An always important consideration for Inuit, the quality of relations with family, friends, neighbours, and people within the community (including non-Inuit) is a key dimension of the lived experience of health” (Fletcher et al. 2021, 11).

According to anthropologists Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich Oosten, inuuqatigiitsiarniq refers to living well together (Laugrand and Oosten 2009, 125). It is descriptive in that it characterizes the conditions experienced by an individual, family, or community. But it is also prescriptive in that it conveys an ideology of how people should live together in harmony and conduct themselves in a social arrangement. A wide range of feelings and ways of being can be associated with experiencing inuuqatigiitisarniq, such as feeling comfortable, productive, confident, and supported, as well as being acknowledged and working well with others. Positive interpersonal relationships, which are central to Inuit cultural norms, are characterized by an ability to help, respect, share with, and care for others. Thus, from an Inuit perspective, the quality of interpersonal relations is essential to individual and collective well-being (Ekho and Ottokie 2000; Therrien 2008; Laugrand and Oosten 2009; Annahatak 2014). The term is well-known in the Eastern Arctic; for example, the Government of Nunavut (2021) includes inuuqatigiitsiarniq among several societal values and key dimensions of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ), a major initiative that seeks to assess all government policy from the perspective of Inuit values and knowledge.

In drawing our attention to the qualities of relationships among Inuit, we distinguish inuuqatigiitsiarniq from the contemporary neologism for the English word community in Inuktitut, which is nunalik, meaning “someone who lives in a space” (Schneider 1985, 223).² Inuuqatigiitsiarniq focuses on the relations among people, which is distinct from the geographic concept of nunalik. Nunalik refers to contemporary Inuit towns, hamlets, and villages, which have arisen over the course of the 20^th century as a result of colonial mechanisms put in place in the North in the early 1900s. These policies encouraged Inuit to settle in specific spaces, which developed into communities. Therefore, the use of nunalik speaks to this colonial past and its consequences for Inuit lives, and we decided to distance ourselves from the potential biases inferred by this notion, favoring instead a conceptual framework that echoes Inuit ways of knowing, understanding, and living. Thus, we chose to use inuuqatigiitsiarniq, with its emphasis on productive togetherness as a fundamental value rather than nunalik. Indeed, Nunavimmiut emphasized the importance of inuuqatigiistiarniq for collective well-being and productivity of life in villages (Fletcher et al. 2021), and we foresee that this idea is also important for Siqinirmiut. This is echoed in the work by Ullrich, Demientieff, and Elliott (2022), which points out that “healing and wellness happen within relationships to others.”

Discussion

The notion of community as conceptualized by the Chicago School and the Inuit concept of inuuqatigiitsiarniq capture different dimensions of the social dynamics of Montrealmiut. In the next section, we explore the complementarity of the two concepts with the objective of fashioning a more representative and complete framework for understanding community for Siqinirmiut.

Conceptual Intersections between the Chicago School and Montrealmiut

Three dimensions of the lives of Montrealmiut can be discussed in the light of the Chicago School’s theoretical framework: patterns of association, the presence of institutions, and physical proximity. According to the Chicago School, communities are formed by people who gather due to mutual interests, including economic status, profession, culture, and language. There is an assumption of continuity and persistence in the relations thus formed in urban spaces. Generally speaking, Montrealmiut organize themselves on similar but more fluid bases than is suggested by the Chicago School’s concept of community. For example, many participants in our research expressed appreciation for Indigenous cultural events in Montreal, such as powwows. One participant explained, “I spend a lot of time with the broader Montreal Indigenous community. I’ll go to specific events for Indigenous people as a whole” (man, 34, in Montreal for more than 15 years). Another participant found meaning in events that are “Cultural, like drumming, beading, burning sage. But there are a lot of Indian activities they’re lacking with the Inuit, but for me getting any sorts of like, like what the Indians did too, I’m considering like, okay, that’s Aboriginal. It’s close enough” (man, 25, living in Montreal for more than 15 years). While pleasant and engaging, these connections are occasional and fleeting. Even Inuit-specific cultural activities—feasts, carving, and sewing sessions—gather people from different cultural backgrounds, different life situations and conditions, and various personal interests only temporarily and inconsistently. Moreover, sharing common interests, economic status, and professions were potential but not determinant reasons for association with other Montrealmiut. As described earlier, people who are employed or study, have a place to live, and have (or aim to have) a healthy lifestyle tend to dissociate themselves from those who do not; however, that does not mean that merely having work, studies, or a healthy lifestyle inclines them to associate with each other either. A deeper understanding of the dynamics of association among Montrealmiut should therefore include a broader and more flexible description of the factors that affect their desire to gather.

The Chicago School also theorized that a sense of community is fostered by the presence of institutions (Kruckeberg and Starck 1988). Tomiak and Patrick (2010) have indeed identified this process in an urban Inuit context in southern Canada. They argue that “Inuit-controlled organizations have become primary vehicles for constructing a community among a dispersed and heterogeneous Inuit population” in urban settings, allowing this population to gather and foster relationships with people who share the same culture and bond to the Arctic (137–138). In Ottawa, for example, the institutional landscape, which includes organizations such as Akausivik Inuit Family Health Team and Tungasuvvingat Inuit, has fostered a feeling of togetherness for urban Inuit that has contributed to the emergence of a coherent community. In contrast, despite the creation of the Manitoba Inuit Association in 2008, Inuit “have remained largely unacknowledged in Manitoba, as if invisible,” a situation that could be explained by a lack of Inuit-specific public services (Lavoie et al. 2021, 16). In Montreal, the absence of Inuit institutions makes it difficult to evaluate the sense of cohesion and belonging; there is no institutionalized community at present.

Lastly, a community is commonly defined by physical proximity, by the gathering of people in a geographically well-defined space. While very few Inuit who participated in the QS project claimed to have a strong sense of belonging to the city itself, they did point to some specific neighborhoods as gathering places for Inuit—namely, the West Island, particularly the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport in Dorval, a landmark for north–south travel, and Cabot Square in downtown Montreal, which is frequented by the homeless Inuit population. The regular mentions of the airport as an important reference point speaks to the significance of mobility between the North and the South and among villages and regions in the constitution of community in its broad cultural sense. Our qualitative analysis shows that the importance given to certain relationships was not determined by geographical proximity but rather by emotional proximity. This finding could be explained by the fact that many Inuit move to the South not because they want to but because they need to leave the North to improve their well-being and their life perspectives. Thus, many participants had maintained close, intimate relationships with people who lived in the North or elsewhere in Canada, even though they live permanently in Montreal. One might argue that some Inuit, when they move to the South, experience culture shock in Montreal, akin to what the Chicago School thinkers described when people visit the world outside their community. But for the Inuit participants we interviewed, the decision and action to move South might, in fact, fall within the inuuqatigiitsiarniq process: a way to improve their well-being, despite the hardships that this implies. A city such as Montreal offers exactly the freedom of association that is needed for enacting inuuqatigiitsiarniq. Furthermore, according to participants, the choice to spend time in, or avoid, certain places in the urban setting was closely related to their desire not to be identified or associated with the other people who frequent those places. For example, several participants tended to avoid Cabot Square because they did not want to be associated with those who frequent the square, many of whom are in precarious situations or struggling with substance use problems. The patterns of socialization and sense of belonging in certain “Inuit” places was therefore inconsistent and renegotiated according to not only specific contexts and moments but, more importantly, the nature of the individual’s relationship to those who frequent these places. For Inuit we met, the freedom to choose the places they wanted to frequent and the people they wanted to associate themselves with in the city was perceived as an opportunity to renegotiate their social relationships according to what is most beneficial to their personal well-being. Conversely, this freedom could sometimes also have negative repercussions on collective well-being, acting as a barrier to the emergence of a sense of community. The space of community is thus engaged strategically and with social goals in mind—goals that, for some, translate into affective dispositions and emotional relief.

The Chicago School’s definition of community is anchored in specific characteristics that are relevant to Inuit experience but are too limiting to explain the diversity and complexity of the social connections among Inuit living in Montreal. Even if some elements proposed by the Chicago School's theoretical framework indeed overlap with our observations, the concept of community has shortcomings that limit our capacity to further understand the social dynamics of Siqinirmiut.

Exploring Conceptual Complementarity between the Chicago School and Inuuqatigiitsiarniq

Having established that the Chicago School's notion of community does not completely account for the ways that Montrealmiut organize themselves, we argue that incorporating dimensions of inuuqatigiitsiarniq provides a fuller understanding of the social ties and the general well-being of Inuit in Montreal. Community and inuuqatsigiitsiarniq are complementary and, when brought together, reposition the notion of community.

In the Chicago School’s perspective, people move through the city until they find a neighborhood of people with their language and culture or other mutual interests, and where they can play a functional role. There is no desire or need to develop relationships outside a particular community, except for educational or business purposes. The strong dependence of the concept of community on physical anchorage in urban space and on functional relationships is situated in the thinking of the era.

In their conceptualization of the notion of community, members of the Chicago School defined this space as one that propagates certain ideals, attitudes, beliefs, feelings, as well as shared experiences and memories. In this regard, inuuqatigiitsiarniq offers a similar perspective, since this concept encompasses a certain ideology, acting as a social guideline for people to live well together, encouraging positive relational experiences and feelings among them. It puts forward values and principles that foster positive and constructive attitudes and ways of being together. But inuuqatigiitsiarniq also challenges, in its own way, the concept of community, because it implies agency in the search for satisfying relationships. For the Chicago School, being in a community of peers is natural, functional, and, in itself, fulfilling; discomfort is experienced only outside the community. In contrast, Montrealmiut show openness and motivation to develop and cultivate harmonious, supportive, and productive relationships with a diversity of people across different parts of the city and in relation to various activities. Most of our Montreal participants kept active relationships with their family members and friends in the North through phone calls and social networks. Furthermore, inuuqatigitsiarniq encourages positive, harmonious, and constructive relationships not only among Inuit (whether they live in the North or in the South) but also with non-Inuit.

In this sense, inuuqatigiitsiarniq does not emphasize what is economically or culturally shared (with the implication that what is shared brings personal comfort); rather, the focus is on the quality of the relationships one entertains individually and within one’s group. It relies on individual capacity and the will to improve existing relationships or to seek new, more satisfying ones, despite spatial boundaries. Therefore, the Inuit concept encourages healthy relationships with all people who share, or have shared, the same place, no matter who the people are, and where they live now. Relations are understood and maintained through current and past experiences, similar interests and backgrounds, emotional connection, the mutual feeling of respect, and the willingness to support others. This holistic understanding of social dynamics enables the freedom to choose the people with whom one associates, based on the potential of those relationships to foster personal and collective well-being.

Space plays a role in the definition of a community, as the Chicago School makes clear, but the lack of Inuit institutions or a neighborhood in Montreal makes it difficult to understand Inuit relational health as a function of “unifying/gathering” spaces in urban settings. Instead, Montrealmiut relationships are best understood in a broader sense, as “people who share place” (Fletcher et al. 2021, 11), now or in the past. Thus, Montrealmiut community-level relations include relations with people living in the South and the North. Many Montrealmuit have emotional bonds with people, memories, and experiences anchored in the North; these bonds are actualized and lived in many ways in Montreal, and these connections influence the health and well-being of Siqinirmiut. As Tomiak and Patrick explain, “[t]he lack of recognition that Inuit reside outside of traditional homelands has contributed significantly to new forms of Inuit cultural production, as urban Inuit mobilize for resources and recognition in cities. The new forms of Inuitness are rooted in the Arctic North but are produced in the culturally pluralistic South” (Tomiak and Patrick 2010, 134). Therefore, for southern Inuit, relational health can be understood as occupying a geographically delimited space and maintaining the conceptual, social, and emotional connections that link them to a diversity of people more broadly, including those in the North. We thus argue that a broader range of relationships should be considered in the creation of culturally specific resources, services, and institutions for Inuit in the South.

While the description of social activities embedded in the notion of community is accurate when looking at Montrealmiut reality, other features must be taken into consideration to foster a deeper understanding of Montrealmiut sociality. As the people we spoke with described it, Inuit in Montreal associate with others based on mutual interests, cultural and linguistic similarities, and common socioeconomic status, characteristics that are clear in the Chicago School framework. Living in the city offers a broad range of potential relationships with people from different backgrounds met at school, work, in the neighborhood, and so on. Indeed, the search for positive, harmonious, and constructive relationships also has a significant impact on the desire of Montrealmiut to gather among themselves, and to connect with non-Inuit. For example, one participant talked about a time when she needed support but could not reach out to her relatives because of tense family relations. Instead, she decided to seek help from non-Inuit friends whom she had met in the city, knowing that they would willingly support her (woman, 24, in Montreal for more than 10 years). The capacity of individuals to act independently and to find friends and activities within the broad spectrum of people in the city is very much appreciated by Montrealmiut. This freedom contrasts with the sometimes coercive pressure people feel to gather or engage with others following social, cultural, or religious norms in the North. A participant mentioned that it was important for her to have the freedom to practice different activities on Sundays, such as sewing or beading, even though some members of her family who live in the North would disapprove due to religious reasons (woman, 30s, in Montreal for 5–10 years). Several participants noted that in their home communities, everyone knows everyone’s life, but in the city, they could be on their own, be who they want to be, and do what they wish without being observed or judged: “I think I was fifteen when we moved, I got to experience being a teenager in someplace where no one knew me. So it was a big difference. No one has known me since I was born, basically. And I was able to find new friends, find a different lifestyle, not reinvent myself, but present myself differently” (woman, 22, in Montreal for 5–10 years). Agency, at a personal but also a collective level, fosters relations that positively impact individual and collective well-being. The characteristics described by the sociological perspective of the Chicago School can offer some elements of reflection, but to further analyze and understand the matter, they must be deepened by integrating the Inuit concept of health. In the interest of defining and recognizing an Inuit “community” in Montreal, an effort with increasingly real-world repercussions, we highlight the importance of putting aside assumptions and redefining how community-level relationships are created, maintained, or renegotiated, and with whom.

Both inuuqatigiitsiarniq and community can help us understand the social dynamics and realities of Inuit living in the South. Those notions remind us that social health is a question of interpersonal relationships developed in many ways and places, which is important for policymakers to understand when designing services for Inuit. Inuuqatigiitsiarniq and community both give health and community organizations the opportunity to focus on and adapt their practices to the well-being of the Inuit community and develop the capacity to foster good interpersonal relationships among all individuals. This change of perspective does not undermine the importance of the well-being of the community or the group; rather, it reminds us that the group is made up of individuals, and that by considering the health of each person, the health of the group is promoted. It underlines the importance of paying attention to each life situation, pathway, and person, while bringing together not only Inuit but people from all origins and backgrounds. Coupling the notion of community with inuuqatigiitsiarniq also ensures a continuity of Inuit values and knowledge, which remain relevant today. Working with inuuqatigiitsiarniq to better understand urban realities enables us to promote and value Inuit perspectives, while taking into consideration the diversity of values, interests, and social practices people hold. As one facet of the Inuit model of health, this emic concept is not only a culturally specific way of understanding and living interpersonal relationships at personal and societal levels; it also encompasses the repercussions of those relations on personal and collective physical and mental well-being. It focuses on the quality of relationships and the conditions and feelings experienced by people, in an inclusive and fluid way. Thus, the notion of inuuqatigiitsiarniq combined with the one of community creates a dynamic understanding of interpersonal relationships rooted in contemporary urban situations, which is necessary to offer appropriate, culturally safe services.

Conclusion

We have demonstrated that Inuit concepts and perspectives must complement the notion of community to adequately reflect the particular social dynamics of Montrealmiut and to deepen our understanding of their interactions and cohabitation with each other and with others. We argue that the notion of inuuqatigiitsiarniq can offer an in-depth understanding of the relationships among all people—not just exchanges between Inuit—and in all the spaces in which people can interact, whether it be the urban environment or in private and public spheres. The possibility to be associated with others is not limited to cultural or language identities but is also open to elective affinities. Therefore, the notion of inuuqatigiitsiarniq can encourage everyone who interacts with urban Inuit to deepen their perspectives on how interpersonal relationships contribute to collective health and well-being.

We also showed that even though inuuqatigiitsiarniq implies that people share the same place, it is also effective among people who do not share the same place permanently or who no longer share the same place. Thus, Siqinirmiut well-being also depends on maintaining relationships with people in the North. This is an important aspect to consider when constructing programs and services for Siqinirmiut who might need support to maintain their connection with the North. Conceptually, inuuqatigiitsiarniq highlights the quality of the bond as the core of healthy relationships. And this bond is not strictly defined by a common culture, language, or place, but by the possibility of feeling appreciated, supported, and protected together. We argue that inuuqatigiitsiarniq can offer elements of precision to the notion of community, thus allowing us to reconsider and reinterpret the idea of community in a culturally relevant and coherent way. By using both concepts, we can apprehend the reality of Montrealmiut in all its complexity and take into consideration its nuances, fluctuations, and its specificities.

Having a better understanding of Siqinirmiut relationships in the light of the both the concept of community from the Chicago School and inuuqatigiitsiarniq, an Inuit concept of health, we are better equipped to construct services that meet the diversity of needs of the growing Siqinirmiut population. The SQIA is currently leading a working group that is planning on opening a culturally safe space specifically dedicated to the health and well-being of Siqinirmiut. In accordance with the holistic concept of health presented in the IQI model, the clinic will offer mental and physical health services, as well as cultural and community activities to enhance individual, family, and community well-being. Moving forward with this project, we hope that the discussion presented in this article will contribute positively to the design of culturally safe services for Inuit in the South.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the work of Marie-Claude Lyonnais and the late Linda Shipaluk, who participated in the data collection for the first phase of the QS project, as well as the community coordinator of the project, Alisha Tukkiapik, for reviewing and enriching this paper.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this research comes from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, ArcticNet NCE, and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. The project is undertaken with ethical approbation of the Comités d’éthique de la recherche avec des êtres humains (CÉRUL) de l’Université Laval (SIRUL Number 119945).

Notes on contributors

Mathilde Lapointe

Mathilde Lapointe is a medical anthropologist concerned with Inuit perspectives on health and well-being. She has a master’s degree in anthropology from Université Laval (Québec). Mathilde works with Inuit in Nunavik (Puvirnituq, Kuujjuaq) as well as in urban settings in southern Quebec. She is a Planning, Programming and Research Officer at the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec (CHUQ), as well as a teaching assistant for various Indigenous health and well-being courses at Université Laval. Mathilde is the project coordinator of the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut? health survey.

Nathalie Boucher

Nathalie Boucher, is an anthropologist specializing in urban public spaces. She has a master’s degree in anthropology from Université Laval (Québec) as well as a doctorate in urban studies from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique – Centre Urbanisation Culture Société (Montréal). For the past 15 years, she has been working on public spaces, especially aquatic public spaces, and their urban social life role. She studied Los Angeles parks and squares, Australian beaches and pools, Taiwan thermal baths, and Montreal public beaches. She founded and leads REsPIRE, an organization offering qualitative research services for urban issues.

Ariane Benoit

Ariane Benoit is an anthropologist who received her doctorate from Inalco University (France). Her research focuses on interactional practices in educational and health institutions, and on the place and the effects of interpersonal relationships on health, well-being, and education. She studied Inuktitut at Inalco University (France). As a postdoctoral fellow within the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut? project, she conducted a project about the place of culture in fostered children’ health and well-being in urban settings.

Christopher Fletcher

Christopher Fletcher is a medical anthropologist concerned with the relationship between culture and health generally, the intersection of Indigenous models of health and healing with mainstream medicine, and the reduction of health inequity. He codirected the community component of the Qanuilirpitaa 2017 regional health survey in Nunavik and is the principal investigator of the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut? population health survey with Inuit living in southern Quebec.

Notes

1. In this article we use “urban” to refer to people living outside the Inuit Nunangat, who often live in and around urban spaces in the South. We acknowledge that this term may not be ideal for reflecting Inuit mobility and realities. However, discussions we had with southern Inuit showed that for a lack of better term, “urban” was still the formulation with which they identified most comfortably.

2. For more on the root noun nuna-, see Patrick (2008) and Schneider (1985, 222–223).