Mapping Indigenous Geographies: Investigating the Cultural Landscapes of the Yucatan Peninsula from a Mayan Perspective

This two-year grant will support a new research program that will investigate how the Maya of the Yucatan region of Mexico conceptualize the cultural landscapes surrounding their communities, and how their perspectives differ from what is represented in the “official” cartographies of the state.  Field research will include local investigators who will help test new participatory mapping methods in three neighbouring communities. The features of the landscape to be mapped will include such things as traditional resource use areas, sacred water bodies, and historic sites. These kinds of places almost always have names, and as such, documenting and analyzing toponyms (i.e., placenames) will be a focus of the mapping methodology. This research aims to advance our understanding of indigenous knowledges and contribute to theory in critical cartography and postcolonialism, and at the same time counter marginalizing cartographic narratives by producing maps made by local community members that show what they consider to be relevant and that reflect their own distinct world view.

This project emerged from a SSHRC-funded Research Development Initiative involving a research planning workshop in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut in February, 2010, with additional meetings and an elder-youth land camp in August, 2010. During these discussions, local community research priorities were identified around the relationships between caribou, community, and well-being. Inuit elders in Gjoa Haven, on King William Island in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, want to share their knowledge and oral history with younger generations of Inuit, and are also concerned about the health of caribou and the kinds of wildlife research (or lack thereof) undertaken in the region.

Therefore, this project was developed in collaboration with community members and the Kitikmeot Inuit Association to explore the value of elder-youth land camps as a means of fostering inter-generational knowledge transfer and conceptualizing Inuit research methodologies.

Focusing on Inuit-caribou relationships in the context of changing northern lifestyles, this research will address concerns around: i) northern educational policy implementation; ii) the lack of caribou research on King William Island; iii) community health and cultural implications of shifting Inuit-caribou relations; and, iv) culturally appropriate and respectful research and education relationships.

The objectives of this project are to:

- investigate cross-cultural applications of Indigenous research methodologies

- explore the role of place in northern education, Inuit identity, and human-animal relations, and

- understand how community-driven research and education can foster community health and prosperity.

This case study will thus address community goals while informing broader debates around Indigenous and cultural geography theoretical approaches, Aboriginal identities, sustainable livelihoods, place- based education, wildlife management, and cultural knowledge transmission.

This project will support community research initiatives in partnership with local representatives from the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, the Elder’s Group, the Hunters and Trappers Organization, the Government of Nunavut Department of Environment, and Qiqirtaq High School. This project is also designed to hire a part-time local research coordinator in Gjoa Haven, as well as to support the graduate research of one MA and one PhD student over the three-year project lifespan. Furthermore, local elders will be involved as coordinators and educators for the land camps, and students and other local youth will be involved in all aspects of the research, while also learning from their elders at the same time.

For more info on Professor Laidler’s research,  visit her website.

• maintenance and further development of web site for research project;
• preparation of annotated bibliographies on specific topics related to the preparation of articles and book chapters; 
• participant observation with one or both of the two case study organizations; 
•  in conjunction with the graduate student RAs, summarize key elements of primary documents and organize and sort key documents
  transcription of interviews.

The proposed research falls within the Strategic Project Grants target area of Healthy Environment and Ecosystems (Ecosystem Adaptation, Interventions and Modeling). We will provide a detailed assessment of the impact of climate change, as archived in Late Holocene (last ~3500 years) lake sediments, and tree ring records spanning the last 200 years, to provide information valuable for current and future management of the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road (TCWR). The TCWR is the world’s longest heavy haul ice road (586 km) extending from Yellowknife, NT into southern NU. The TCWR is critical to the economy of the NT with more than $500 million per year in goods passing north to service mines along the route. As 87% of the TCWR is built over lakes, any change in ice stability, thickness, and duration of cover associated with climate variability impacts use of the road. For example, the unusually mild and stormy El Niño influenced, winter of 2006 shortened winter road operations to 26 days below average, resulting in only 6,841 loads going north. As a consequence there were substantial industry losses (e.g. mothballing of the Tahera Diamond Jericho Diamond Project has been linked to the prohibitive cost of flying in fuel). With a projected growth in truck traffic to 14,000 loads north by 2013 it is critical that policy makers, planners, and mine developers have reasonable data upon which to base economic forecasts, as alternate transportation costs (e.g. air transport) are prohibitively high. In our multi-disciplinary research on a series of cores collected along the length of the TCWR we will provide high-resolution information on climate variability and its affects on aquatic and terrestrial environments in the central NT. Our methodology will permit us to recognize cycles and trends that have impacted climate change. Through use of time series analyses we will predict possible future trends in climate and ice cover. This information may be used by stakeholders (e.g., industry, government, non-government organizations, and First Nations groups) to strategically manage northern ecosystems and to inform policy makers and planners of potential climate conditions that may prevail in the coming decades.

Chris’s award will facilitate his research at Herschel Island in the western Arctic, the largest of Yukon’s islands in the Beaufort Sea.  In particular he will investigate when Herschel became an island, as sea-level rise swamped the ground joining it to the mainland. This project will involve obtaining the temperature of subsea permafrost in Workboat Passage, between the island and the mainland, and deterinmining how long it has taken for the sediments to warm up to their present condition.

Chris is currently editing a multi-disciplinary book about Herschel Island, with 35 chapters covering Land and Water, Flora and Fauna, and People and Culture for this place, to which the first resource rush in the western Arctic occurred, from 1889-1907, for the hunting of bowhead whales.  The book may be available before Christmas 2010.

Head of Carleton’s Cold Regions Hydrology Lab, Carey’s research focus on cold climate processes – or in lay terms, snow, ice, frozen ground, and cold temperatures, and their effects on hydrological processes.“I am also involved with the governments of the northern territories and oilsands mine operators in Fort McMurray to examine methods of returning active and abandoned mines to viable ecosystems,” explains Carey. “Reclaiming mine sites to an ecosystem that can support vegetation and perform natural functions is a particular challenge in the north.” 

Carey was nominated for the award by his colleagues. “It is very humbling to be given such an award by my peers,” says Carey.  “I am lucky in that in hydrology, my peers are my friends, and I thank my friends for providing such an enjoyable and stimulating research environment.” 

Each year, the CGU presents the award to one Canadian scientist.  To be eligible for the award, the recipient must be within 10 years of obtaining their first Ph.D. or equivalent degree. The awards are made by the CGU Executive on the recommendations of a special committee.