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Inuit communities have sustained themselves in the Arctic for millennia through systematic knowledges about and relationships with the ecosystem of which they are a part. Because of increasing reliance on global industrial food systems there is a growing lack of access to sufficient quantities of affordable, culturally significant, and nutritious food. Arctic food insecurity stems from multiple factors, including the loss of Inuit knowledges regarding traditional food production due to negative, deficit-based stereotypes that label those foods as unsafe or disgusting. Fermented foods are among those traditional foods that have been the most criticized, even though they provide a valuable source of nutrition and health benefits. The overarching long-term goal of the planning grant project is to support the resurgence of Inuit fermented foods by generating positive, desire-based messages that recognize and value the knowledge of Indigenous fermenters, thereby improving food security in Inuit communities. The planning grant performed activities to build foundations for an Inuit-led, self-sustaining, and collaborative network in Greenland to promote Inuit fermented foods and food safety. These efforts were also intended to lead to improved scientific questions that address the future and present needs of people in the Arctic from an Indigenous perspective. Data collected for this planning grant include images, interviews, audio recordings, video recordings, and transcripts from 17 individual interviews and group discussions. These data were collected during three trips to Greenland, including two trips to South Greenland (Nanortalik, Narsarmijit, and Nunarsuaq) and one to Nuuk, spanning May 2022 to August 2024. Stakeholders included community members (elders, children, tourists, chefs, fishers, and other community members), a director of a cultural center, and a food authority supervisor. The interviews and recordings were conducted to identify key themes and to assess the desire and need for additional research and resources. The summary enclosed explains the trips, meetings and interactions, and major project findings. Key findings include how Greenlanders connect foods and land (place) together. Another finding is the expressed need for more resources and support for Greenlandic food researchers who are rooted in their communities and recognize the value of local knowledge.
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An Ethnographic Model of Stress and Stress Management in Two Canadian Inuit Communities
As part of the first stage of a community-based participatory research project with two communities in the Canadian Arctic—Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik, and Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories—we conducted 57 interviews eliciting residents’ perceptions of pressing issues facing their communities, problems affecting health and wellbeing, and how researchers or other organized groups could help alleviate those problems. A recurrent theme that emerged during these interviews was having “no one to talk to.” Here, we focus on understanding why communication was a central theme using a grounded-theory approach to develop a model of Inuit stress management. Inuit in both Kangiqsujuaq and Ulukhaktok codify stress as isumaaluttuq, or excess worry, which often manifests physically and leads to social withdrawal. Because stress is believed to accumulate in the body, managing it involves decisions about whether to “Get It Out” or “Keep It In.” Keep It In is a potentially dangerous strategy because, if the problem does not resolve itself, accumulated stress may have harmful consequences. Inuit viewed talking to others as the most effective means to Get It Out, but respondents also identified numerous barriers to doing so. One important reason for this is that stress is transferable: Talking to others about a problem potentially increases the burden of stress on them. Consequently, Inuit may choose to Keep It In to avoid the potential negative consequences (for others or for oneself) of sharing bad thoughts. Based on this preliminary model, we consider questions for further inquiry and implications for community-based mental health programming in Inuit communities.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1813496
- PAR ID:
- 10479895
- Publisher / Repository:
- Sage Journals
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Volume:
- 54
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0022-0221
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 407 to 428
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1177/00220221231155105
