Article body

As a platform for Inuit scholars who are concerned with lives lived in Inuit Nunangat, Sivumut positions the reader to engage with Inuit voices on the topic of education. The concept of Sivumut “means forward or towards the future” (Arnaquq 2015: 19). Sivumut provides insider insights into Inuit education. In Naullaq Arnaquq’s words, which are quoted in the collection’s opening page, “It is time for me to write as the ‘insider’ claiming and reclaiming that space” (quoted in Walton and O’Leary 2015: 1).

In Sivimut, nine Inuit authors, each of whom holds a master of education degree from the University of Prince Edward Island, share personal stories as acts of reclamation. In the process, they provide rich examples from lived experiences to enumerate Inuit strengths, contemplate future possibilities, and make accessible deeper understandings of troubled colonial relationships and systemic problems. The authors effectively use auto-ethnography to reveal the tensions embedded in inequitable Inuit–Qallunaat relations, as well as to theorize a collective vision of education for Inuit Nunangat, one that is grounded in Inuit worldview and driven by the work of Inuit scholars. The book’s title is also its central concept; Sivumut provides the substance needed to build a future where Inuit ways of knowing and being become the basis of Inuit education.

This book review highlights poignant ideas that emerged for me in carefully reading each chapter. I examine the chapters one by one before proposing a review of key themes and my recommendation at the end.

Naullaq Arnaquq, in the first chapter, draws on her master’s thesis (2008) to establish the foundations of inequity in Inuit–Qallunaat relations and to provide strategies for moving forward with Inuit leadership in education. She begins by lamenting the imposition of Canadian government-run education, writing that the schools “ignored the rich and unique history, culture and legacy of my parents and grandparents” (12). She explores some underlying reasons why Inuit seemed to be so easily influenced by Qallunaat officials. She explains, “Our cultural values and customs were based on survival and life in a context that depended on harmonious kinship and interdependency” (15). Government workplaces have not respected many of these Inuit values (Ibid.: 24) and, by association, Inuit systems. Finally, Arnaquq celebrates the Sivumut education conference held in 1990: “Sivumut was a turning point for Inuit teachers, after which they took ownership and participated in the development of education based on Inuit history, culture and language” (21). Sivumut, as Arnaquq makes clear, provides enormous hope through disrupting inequitable colonial patterns through Inuit leadership and Inuit knowledge.

In chapter 2, Monica Ittusardjuat examines several points: power relations, including imbalances caused by Inuit fear of Qallunaat; government impositions, including residential schools; and dissonances embedded in the processes of colonization, including alcohol abuse, marital conflict, and suicide. She gives deep insights into her lived experiences, explaining how Inuit worldviews and ways of knowing and being, in combination with Qallunaat systems, worked to structure her life. As she explains, “Even though in my young life I was pulled in two different directions—the expectations of traditional life through my arranged marriage and the custom adoption of my son and daughter, and the colonizing effects of residential schools—I have managed to finally make my way toward healing and balance” (42).

Saa Pitsiulak, the author of chapter 3, underlines the merits of writing her history, from her view. In a section titled “Learning How to Act Like an Inuk” (49), she provides practical content about strategies for living a good life, based on Inuit values. Next, Pitsiulak clearly underlines issues with Qallunaat authorities and dissonances between Inuit collective approaches to living together and Qallunaat individualist ones. She writes about the importance of knowing her past through writing as a mechanism for reclaiming her identity by documenting and retelling her family history. She explains, “Knowing my identity more fully as an Inuk woman allows me to use it as a source of educational leadership in Nunavut” (44). Pitsiulak gives a good overview of camp life: “Everyone had a role back then. There was always work for everyone within the camp” (49). She makes visible the importance of what it means to act like an Inuk, to live in camp, to live a life where everyone has meaningful tasks. The reader learns about ways in which collective aspects of Inuit worldview were lived. There follows a description and analysis of the conflict between the individualistic emphasis of Euro-Western–informed systems and the collectivist nature of Inuit ones. As she explains, “schools taught us to think more about ourselves and less about the needs of the collective group, which is the opposite of the way we operated in camps … We became cruel, competitive and uncooperative” (51). Through the act of reclamation, involved in crafting this chapter, Pitsiulak provides rich and valuable insights to disrupt marginalizing dominant discourses.

In the fourth chapter, Maggie Kuniliusie describes how she overcame a difficult residential school experience to become a teacher and a scholar. Through her writing. Kuniliusie celebrates her resiliency and capacity to negotiate a meaningful life in “both Inuit and Qallunaat society” (79). She also continues the work of dismantling dominant discourses about the North, expands on the idea of collaborative leadership, and fortifies the validation of Inuit practices, taken up in previous chapters. In seeking to unsettle the concept of the barren land, Kuniliusie writes, “Some romantic novels or journals depict the Arctic as harsh, freezing cold and uninhabitable, but my parents always lived hand in hand with nature. Their respect for the land, the seas and the skies are forever immeasurable. All their senses were connected to the environment” (58). On the topic of leadership embedded in collaboration, Kuniliusie writes about problem solving based on consensus: “Overall, the Inuit managed their camps with collaborative relations of power and mutual consensus” (58). She also writes about gender balance and co-sleeping and gives insights into some of the tensions that develop inside government-built communities when small, close-knit camps are reassembled into larger hamlets and villages. I particularly like the part where Kuniliusie acknowledges the essential role of her father and brothers as hunters and describes eating delicious raw meat served on cardboard on the floor with friends and family gathered in a circle, recognizing how “sharing resources made the people rich and unified” (59).

Maggie Putulik, in chapter 5, provides conceptual tools to comprehend colonization and uses the principle of piniasarniq as a strategy for engaging with Inuit philosophy to make capable humans, inunnguiniq, in the future. To begin, Putulik takes up the topic of the name and the concept of name as integral to identity. She explores her own Qallunaat name and considers the implications of not having an Inuit name. This discussion prompts the reader to consider one way in which colonial language becomes present in Inuit lives, through something as significant as one’s name. She continues by providing a set of valuable tools for furthering our consideration of the manifestations of colonization in Inuit lives. Putulik draws on Spivak’s (1985) concept of “worlding” where “the colonized are then made to experience their own land belonging to the colonizer” (quoted in Putulik 2015, 79) to help explain the upside-down power relations. This concept is demonstrated when Putulik writes about the “policy of dispersal” (80–81, citing Damas 2002). This practice was employed during the transition to settlement life, when the trading post missions were established, but Inuit were encouraged by the Qallunaat authorities to disperse—out of town. She then makes visible the operations of “erasure” (81), thereby substantiating her previous arguments. She cites a Hamlet of Chesterfield Inlet document (n.d.) about a historical walking tour of the town site in which Inuit are not referenced. Despite the oppression brought by colonial supremacy, Putulik enumerates strategies embedded in Inuit ways of knowing and being that offer future hope. Piniaqsarniq means “practicing with precision to succeed” (78). When Inuit learn skills related to life on the land, sea, and ice using piniaqsarniq, practising for speed and excellence, then the possibility of developing a future Inuit pedagogy embedded in inunnguiniq, the “making of a capable human being” (82), seems feasible.

In chapter 6, Nunia Qanatsiaq Anoee explains the meaning of tunnganarniq and provides strategies for adopting a practice of tunnganarniq in the school and classroom. To begin, Anoee provides a definition: “The term tunnganarniq comes from the root tunnga, meaning to be firmly grounded. Related words include tunngavik, a secured foundation. Tunnganarniq means to be approachable, hospitable, kind, generous, honest and respectful” (89). Tunnganarniq is a key to school success because, as Anoee explains, “students need to feel appreciated and acknowledged, and above all to be comfortable being themselves” (90). Tunnganarniq is about students, families, and community members feeling welcome to participate in the school project. It is about kind teachers who respect parents; respecting Inuit ways of knowing and being and bringing them into the school project; using the Inuit language and names; and employing traditional kinship referencing practices. As Anoee elaborates in her chapter, “when students feel welcome, they enjoy going to school” (97), and in education that is what tunnganarniq is all about.

Jeela Palluq-Cloutier, in chapter 7, provides an autobiography of her life speaking, living, and working in Inuktut. She begins with an appreciation for traditional naming and referencing practices and then provides an extensive chronicle of her work with the Inuktut language and how she attained a strong linguistic foundation with excellent teachers both at home, through her father and grandmother, and in the formal world of education. Here she acknowledges the work of many Inuktut language teachers and the importance of their influence. After reading Palluq-Cloutier I am eager to learn more about the arguments for a single written Inuktut language and about her findings from interviews with teachers about dialectical variations and standardization.

Chapter 8, written by Becky Tootoo, is titled “Strengthening Young Inuit Male Identity” (121). This chapter is full of rich content, personal stories, insightful quotations from interviews, and references to scholarly texts - all woven together to make a convincing argument for drawing on Inuit ways of knowing and being in youth work in order to nurture young Inuit male identities. In this valuable contribution to the text, Tootoo makes clear the importance of intergenerational relationships between Elders and youth as a strategy for disrupting the dissonances of cultural dislocation. Tootoo’s work gives voice to Inuit men both young and old. She seeks to find out what leads to success for young Inuit men. She works with and provides a definition of the term pilimmaksarniq, which “means a set of values and beliefs that emphasize endurance, coping and survival through practices that are learned in real life experiences” (133). In this research project, young men worked with older men to learn land skills. In her chapter, the importance of these relationships comes alive.

Mary Joanne Hauki, in writing chapter 9, provides the single Nunavik-based voice in the collection. Hauki enumerates the external and colonial forces that have destabilized an Inuit society woven together by principles of collectivism. She celebrates the value of Inuit role models in her life—women such as Mary Simon, Louisa May, and Siila Watt-Cloutier. She explains how having Inuit role models “ignites hope and empowerment” (157). Hauki is concerned about predatory individualism (Smith 1999, 20, quoted in Hauki 2015, 146), where personal agendas take priority over organizational missions and objectives. She explains that in her work in Nunavik she realized that “people politics were getting in the way of progress and that representatives and employees were not fully carrying out the missions and mandates of their organizations” (146). Hauki asks, “Is it still possible for us to go back to the traditional Inuit practices of collectivism and empowerment to retrieve our once independent and resilient society?” (155). To this end, she calls for Inuit to discuss and document “the beliefs and values, as well as the practices and behaviours that need to guide Inuit society today” (151).

By reading the nine chapters in this collection one can comprehend many of the complexities embedded in colonial relationships. The volume contributors enumerate numerous problems in the colonial education system. More importantly, the authors provide a space to conceptualize possibilities for a vibrant educational future grounded in Inuit ways of knowing and being, which are made possible when Inuit voices retell the histories and provide guidance for strategies to adopt, in shaping the futurefe—Sivumut. This volume will be of interest to students and teachers of education and Indigenous languages; it will be of interest to Inuit and non-Inuit in the North and South who want to read what Inuit have to write about education from Inuit perspectives, and to those seeking insights into policy directions. I recommend this book for use at the university level and will adopt it for my fourth-year undergraduate course in child studies, in which we will be thinking about engaging with reconciliation in educational spaces.