Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

My doctoral research examines how Inuit youth, in everyday practices, negotiate their classification into two categories: the "authentic" Inuit youth promoted by the Nunavut government, and the addicted, sick Inuit adolescent, invoked by public health practitioners. I use tobacco smoking as a lens to ask the following research question: how do Inuit youth appropriate or challenge the idea of authenticity in light of the Nunavut Government's assertion that "Tobacco Was Never Part of Inuit Culture" (Government of Nunavut, 2015)? Beginning with a close consideration of research ethics and my positionality in the field as a settler researcher, this paper critically engages with current settler research field methodologies. Instead, I examine Inuit research methods published by Healey and Tagak (2014), and discuss their practical application. I will present this research methodology in order to solicit feedback for the project.