Avaluqanngittuq: Imagining Inuit futures through multi-media/digital storytelling

Curley, K., Fowlie, H., Kreps, P., Komangapik R., Mündel, I., Rice, C., Panipak, M., Panipak, S., Puskas, S. A., Stribbell, J., & Uqaituk, G. (2022). Avaluqanngittuq: Imagining Inuit futures through multi-media/digital storytelling. In A. Hudson, H. Igloliorte, & J. Lundstrom (Eds.), Qummut Qukiria! Art, culture, and sovereignty across Inuit Nunaat and Sápmi: Mobilizing the Circumpolar North (pp. 294-312). Goose Lane.

Abstract

Within the Canadian context, disruption of Inuit oral traditions occurred over the last century when life lived on the land ended through the imposition of colonial processes that sought to destroy Inuit lifeways, and with these, intergenerational modes of cultural teaching and transmission (LaLonde, 2010). As Hudson (this volume) notes, this subjugation coincided with the establishment of the Inuit art market, and the circulation of art objects without Inuit voice. With the development of Northern radio and film initiatives from the mid-century onwards, she observes that Inuit have maintained a stronger voice in/agency over their storytelling; and in recent years, the availability of accessible video technologies and social media platforms has removed more colonial barriers to making and disseminating Inuit stories across the artic (Wachowich, & Scobie, 2010). The same cannot be said of Inuit living in the south. According to the national organization Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), although 70 percent of Inuit live in the Inuit homeland of Nunangat (comprised of Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut and Inuvialuit), another 30 percent live outside Inuit territories, a number that has jumped by an astonishing 62 percent since 2006 (ITK, 2018).1 While the trend toward urbanization among Inuit continues to grow, settler governments have been ill-prepared to facilitate the transition of Inuit to southern communities or to recognize the presence of Inuit in southern Canada as a distinct group with unique needs, realities and modes of cultural expression.