Notes on a caribou hearing: Spatial marginalization through participatory democracy in western Nunavut

Abstract

Key MessagesPublic hearings function as rituals of participatory democracy whereby indigenous actors must establish their legitimacy via Western communication ideals.Environmental communication as data, story, and behaviour in participation exercises reveal shifting cultural ways of knowing and communicating.Spatial marginalization is related to invited participation in place, the distancing effects of place characteristics, and the experience of being out of place.Public hearings, as a communication tool for community engagement, uphold the processes and assumptions of deliberative participation, but the power relations entwined in participation space are often unremarked. The spatiality of participation can serve to marginalize those publics most affected by environmental policy, such as remote communities reliant on subsistence harvesting. Spatial marginalization was evident when the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board invited Hunters and Trappers Organizations from four Kitikmeot communities to caribou hearings in June 2016 to discuss a proposed total allowable harvest. The hearings were held in Cambridge Bay, the administrative centre of the Kitikmeot region, a hamlet in western Nunavut singular in its economic growth and population diversity. In situ observation during the hearings coupled with a content analysis of hearing transcripts and interviews with attendees suggest that decisions on participation space affect access materially because of who can be there in place to participate, and socially because of the place characteristics of participation. Participants can also be constrained by being out of place, cleaved from the affective support of their communities. At the Nunavut caribou hearings, spatial marginalization emerged as a dark side to participatory democracy. Recognizing this marginalization is a condition for overcoming it. The Canadian Geographer Le Géographe canadienThe Canadian Geographer Le Géographe canadien discuter d'une proposition de r ecolte totale autoris ee. Les audiences se sont tenues a Cambridge Bay, le centre administratif de la r egion de Kitikmeot, un hameau dans l'ouest du Nunavut qui se distingue par sa croissance economique et la diversit e de sa population. Des observations sur place lors des audiences combin ees a une analyse du contenu des transcriptions des audiences et a des entrevues avec des participants sugg erent que les d ecisions sur l'espace de participation ont une incidence sur l'acc es, d'une part physiquement en raison de l'identit e des personnes qui peuventêtre l a sur place pour participer et d'autre part socialement en raison des caract eristiques du lieu de la participation. Les participants peuvent egalementêtre gên es parce qu'ils sont d eplac es, etant coup es du soutien affectif de leur communaut e. Lors des audiences sur les caribous au Nunavut, la marginalisation spatiale est apparue comme un côt e obscur de la d emocratie participative. La reconnaissance de cette marginalisation est une condition pour la surmonter.

“We Don’t Drink the Water Here”: The Reproduction of Undrinkable Water for First Nations in Canada

“…Thus, First Nations contest the sovereign authority claimed by the state, and resist or otherwise attempt to influence the hegemonic activities of the state. They do so by litigating against the government for trespassing on Indigenous rights [57], participating in institutional processes [47,58,59], as well as educating themselves and others about treaty-based relationships [60], Indigenous rights [50,61], and Indigenous world views [62][63][64][65].…”