In recent years, Arctic research has diversified with a special focus on the co-creation of knowledge with Indigenous nations. There is much celebration of the fact that Indigenous knowledge is now being incorporated into and intertwined with Western scientific knowledge. However, discussions on how exactly this coequality may be achieved in Arctic research are rare. The general assumption seems to be that language is transparent, that research data such as traditional stories, archival information on local flora and fauna, interactions between visiting scientists and members of Indigenous communities are translated and interpreted by almost invisible agents, carrying out their work in a social, economic and political vacuum.
Against this background, our transdisciplinary project ‘The role of languages, translation and interpreting in decolonizing Arctic research’, aimed to make the role of languages, translation and interpreting more visible in Arctic research, and through this visibility, contribute to its decolonization. In this project, we were inspired by the guiding principle of Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing) coined in 2004 by Elder Albert Marshall from the Moose Clan of the Mi'kmaw Nation, which refers to viewing the world through the strengths of both Indigenous and Western knowledges. Learning to use both perspectives together, for the benefit of all, requires weaving back and forth between worldviews – at times acknowledging their incommensurability – and provides a space to build meaningful, respectful and culturally-informed collaborations.
As part of this project, we facilitated two online workshops encouraging cross-professional and cross-disciplinary cooperation. The workshops brought together Indigenous translators/ interpreters, youth leaders, translation studies researchers, and project leaders who worked on the thirteen large collaborative Arctic research projects that comprise the CINUK (Canada-Inuit Nunangat-United Kingdom Arctic Research Programme https://www.cinuk.org/). The reason why we focused on the CINUK projects was to represent the cutting edge of Arctic research and engagement featuring strong Inuit involvement (including co-creation), and a wide range of topic areas from environmental change to food and health, engineering and energy to travel and pollution.
Through this rarely-found collaboration in Arctic research between humanities and earth and life sciences, our goal was to shed light on the ethical implications of translation/interpreting in the co-production of knowledge. The project aimed to contribute to supporting participation by Indigenous Peoples and local residents in science activities by encouraging more debate on how this participation actually happens in current research and through which linguistic and cultural means.
Highlights
- Highlight 1: Translation/interpreting takes place in all stages of Arctic research (project development, implementation, dissemination of results/outreach), but tends to be most visible at dissemination/outreach stages.
- Highlight 2: The more translation/interpreting is budgeted for and the earlier it is used (in co-creation of research questions, methodology, etc.), the more opportunities there are for meaningful knowledge co-production.
- Highlight 3: Language learning is regarded as a ‘healing space’. Translation and interpreting could be regarded as an extension of language and culture revitalisation/resurgence, stimulating learning Indigenous languages in different contexts
Date and Location
4th March and 14th March | Online
IASC Working Groups funding the project
- Cryosphere WG
- Marine WG
- Social & Human WG
- Terrestrial WG
Project Lead
Şebnem Susam-Saraeva (University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)
Year funded by IASC
2025