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CWA # 1485, 28 October 2024
NIAS Polar & Ocean Studies
Challenges of State Interventions in Traditional Societies: The cases of Canadian and Greenlandic Inuits

  Ayan Datta

The Inuits, one of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples, inhabit 40 per cent of Canada’s territory and constitute 90 per cent of Greenland’s population. Despite their vast spread and numbers, the community suffers historical and ongoing marginalisation because of intervention by colonial nation-states. State intervention in these Inuit societies has produced multiple challenges for the latter, including healthcare disparities, environmental degradation and loss of traditional culture. 

Healthcare disparities between Inuits and mainstream

Legacies of state intervention have substantially harmed Inuit health outcomes. The community suffer lower life expectancies, living on average for 10-17 fewer years than their mainstream Canadian and Greenlandic counterparts, with the numbers further exacerbated because of high rates of suicide among Inuits. While modern medicine has raised Inuit life expectancy, which ranged between 30 and 40 years before contact with Europeans, they have also introduced new issues, including the wide gap in health outcomes. 

Over 30 per cent of Canadian Inuits suffer from chronic diseases, including Tuberculosis, which is 20 times more common in Inuits than the general population. Infant mortality, diabetes, obesity, and HIV-AIDS rates are also higher in the community, reflecting a vast healthcare disparity with the mainstream.

How did the challenge originate?

Traditionally, Inuit medicine was “folk medicine,” with all adult community members familiar with the traditional healing practices, which relied on a shared knowledge of the social environment and older medical knowledge passed down through the generations. However, state interventions in Inuit healthcare practices were rooted in assimilationist and colonial practices, aiming to destroy Inuit healthcare practices and rapidly integrate them into the “mainstream” (read: White Christian) society. 

A review of specific government practices within Canada and Greenland reflects country-specific attempts to dilute the community’s traditional healthcare practices. Canada’s Indian Act (1876) sought to regulate and damage Inuit health practices in multiple ways. The Act made the federal government liable for health and neglected the local community’s role as the source of healthcare and repository of traditional knowledge about Inuit wellness practices. Healthcare interventions in Greenland reflected a similar pattern, with Denmark’s government introducing policies that advanced Western medicine at the expense of the traditional Inuit practices. According to research from Colorado State University, the lack of culturally rooted medicine intensified health issues, including mental disorders and substance abuse among Inuits. 

What was the actors’ response?

Although both governments initially sought to destroy the Inuits’ traditional healing practices, they adopted a reconciliatory approach during the 2000s. In Canada, the government partnered with Inuit groups to enhance Inuit communities’ control over their health service delivery mechanisms, reflecting its commitment to giving Inuits a stake in issues that impact them. In 2024, Ottawa allocated around USD 105 million for Indigenous community healthcare and USD 167 million to combat racism against Indigenous people, highlighting the leadership’s commitment to providing Inuits safe access to health services. The government’s Indigenous Services Department partnered with Saskatchewan’s Woodland Wellness Centre, combining traditional and modern healing practices. According to Canada’s Indigenous Service Plan, the government will reduce Inuit’s TB rates and improve access to HIV treatment by 2025, reflecting a targeted approach towards Inuit issues. 

The government has followed a similar model in Greenland, focusing on culturally appropriate care and partnership with local Inuit organisations. The Inuit-majority government of Greenland took control of its healthcare from Denmark in 1992.  Since the takeover, the country has focused on Western medical facilities while struggling to address high infant mortality rates and suicides. 

What is the future trajectory?

Although both governments changed their policies, the future of Inuit healthcare will be characterised by slow progress. Although both governments are collaborating with Indigenous communities and allocating greater funds in the national budgets towards improving Inuits’ access to healthcare, they have maintained Western medical facilities as their thrust area and made inadequate investments in traditional practices. 

Environmental degradation 

State interventions into the Inuits’ natural environment have led to a climate crisis for the community, affecting their traditional knowledge and way of life. The Inuit share a deep-rooted economic and spiritual bond with the land and consider it an extension of their bodies. The land and ocean provide the community with essential resources, including seals, fish and caribou for food. However, rapid industrialisation and climate change reduce the availability of Arctic fauna and threaten the Inuits’ food security and Qaujimajatuqangit. (traditional knowledge) which centres around the interconnections between the community and local ecosystems.

How did the challenge originate?

State intervention into Canada and Greenland’s Inuit spaces began during the 20th century, with governments aiming to control the region’s resources to advance their modern industrial economies and assert their territorial claims over the Arctic against their Cold War adversaries. During the 1950s, the Canadian government built the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line in the Arctic and forcibly relocated over 5,000 Inuits, intensifying the community’s reliance on modern society and transportation. Furthermore, Ottawa’s resource extraction practices, especially in northern Canada’s Beaufort Sea (part of the Inuit homeland), harmed Inuits by causing oil spills. In Greenland, the colonial Danish government prioritised industrial progress over a sustainable environment, establishing multiple mining corporations for minerals, including lead and zinc, disrupting the island’s ecological balance and polluting its land and water. During World War II, the US built the Thule Air Base in Greenland, releasing pollutants into the local atmosphere and artificially altering its natural landscape. 

What has been the actors’ response?

Since the 1970s, Inuit non-governmental organisations, including Inuit Taprit Kanatami (ITK) and Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), demanded greater involvement of indigenous voices in climate change policy-making, advocating the use of that Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (traditional knowledge) to frame ecological policies. The ITK organised workshops and community sessions to voice their concerns about climate change in Canada’s Inuit region, called Nunavut and contested the dominant development narratives pushed by the country’s “southern” mainstream. Canada’s government adopted a conciliatory response towards the Inuits’ issue. In 1999, it formed the northern territory of Nunavut, uniting all Canadian Inuits under one province. It signed the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, allowing the community to co-manage the territory’s wildlife, land, and natural resources. The agreement also gave Inuit shares in the federal government’s royalties earned from natural resource mining and exploration in Nunavut, giving the community a stake in their sustainable development. Furthermore, Nunavut’s Nunatsiavut region unveiled plans for an Inuit Protected Area, where the community’s local institutions would collaborate with the federal government to protect Inuit hunting and fishing traditions. The Guardian reported that the arrangement would enable the community to “jointly create and co-manage the protected area, based on Inuit priorities, as an equal authority,” marking a shift from the state’s industrialist and paternalist approach.

In Greenland, the environmentalist effort was led by international organisations, including the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), which campaigned about the harmful effects of climate change on Greenland’s environment. The ICC advocates combining the community’s traditional knowledge with modern science, research and technology to create sustainable development policies as a solution. The Greenland government has begun incorporating traditional knowledge into its policymaking and cooperates with Inuit groups. However, recent steps by Greenland’s government to attract foreign direct investment have exacerbated the community’s climate crisis. The Inuit-led government allowed foreign firms to explore critical minerals on the island, including the Jeff Bezos-owned Bluejay Mining, leading to further possibilities of environmental degradation. 
What is the future trajectory?

State interventions in Inuits’ natural environment have invited intense protests and counter-demands from the community. However, National Geographic reported that most community members do not want a return to the pre-colonial hunter-gatherer lifestyle, instead favouring a balance between environmentalism and technological progress in the future. While the ICC will continue to advocate the inclusion of Inuits’ policy inputs, the Canadian and Greenlandic groups will push for greater control over their homeland’s resources. These groups will seek a balance between industrial technology and environmental sustainability by adopting green technologies, in which mining and exploration of critical minerals will play a significant role. 

Cultural erosion 

The Inuit community faces substantial loss of cultural forms, including the Inuit language, knowledge of hunting-gathering practices, and its traditional kinship-based social structure. The Inuit language is threatened in Canada by the dominance of French and English. Despite being Greenland being majority Inuit, most of the residents are Christians, reflecting the dilution of traditional Inuit religion. State-led modernisation has replaced the kinship-based Inuit society with an increasingly capitalist society, leading to the alienation of young Inuits and rising suicide rates. 
How did the challenge originate?

Canada and Denmark’s 19th and 20th-century colonial policies marked the beginning of the Inuit cultural erosion. In Canada, the Department of Indian Affairs began the system of residential schools, which suppressed the Inuit language and traditions and was responsible for the dilution of Inuit youths’ cultural identity. The government would forcibly send Inuit children to these institutions, separating them from their families and communities. Once inside, the children would be forced to adopt Western and Christian beliefs and practices and physically punished if they disobeyed, reflecting the government’s assimilationist mentality of ‘civilising the savage Indian.’ In Greenland, government-backed Catholic priests launched proselytising missions, socialising the native Inuits into Western and Christian culture. 

What has been the actors’ response?

Since the 1970s, Ottawa and Copenhagen began to support the preservation of indigenous cultures. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (formed in 2015) investigated atrocities against Indigenous peoples, including Inuits, and recommended greater funding for promoting indigenous culture. The ITK and ICC also held cultural camps, language classes, and community programmes to revive the Inuit traditions.  In Greenland, agitations by native Inuits led to efforts to restore the Inuit language. The Home Rule Act (1979) made Greenlandic (an Inuit dialect) the language for school instruction. The Self-government Act (2009) consolidated the trend towards cultural reclamation by making Greenlandic the country’s sole official language. 

What is the future trajectory?

According to the ICC, Inuit youth are eager to reclaim their lost culture, indicating that the community will acquire cultural autonomy in the future. According to the Regional Environmental Change journal, Inuit scientists are attempting to combine traditional and modern research methods, which, in the future, will likely enhance the community’s cultural preservation. While the community has not found a solution to its westernisation and high suicide rates, its leaders will continue to advocate for policy changes that provide solutions tailored to the community’s specific needs.  


References

Web resources:

“An Overview of Inuit Governance Organizations in the Arctic,” The Henry M Jackson School of International Studies, 7 May 2020

“Billionaires are funding a massive treasure hunt in Greenland as ice vanishes,” CNN, 8 August 2022

“Climate Change In The Arctic: An Inuit Reality,” UN Chronicle, 21 August 2007

“GREENLAND 1721-2021: A COLONY. A NATION. A PEOPLE,” Greenland National Museum & Archives, 2021

“Inuit,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 July 2024

“Inuit Experiences at Residential School,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 29 April 2020

“Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami,” Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, 21 August 2024

“Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK),” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 21 November 2019

“Library and Archives Canada,” Government of Canada, 21 August 2024

“The Inuit,” Facing History and Ourselves, 28 July 2024

“Latest News - Inuit Circumpolar Council,” Inuit Circumpolar Council, 21 August 2024

“People of Greenland,” Encyclopedia Britannia, 24 August 2024

“The Inuit Circumpolar Council Political Universe,” Inuit Circumpolar Council, 21 August 2024

Journal articles:

Lafontaine, Alika. ‘Indigenous Health Disparities: A Challenge and an Opportunity’. Canadian Journal of Surgery 61, no. 5 (October 2018): 300–301. https://doi.org/10.1503/cjs.011718.

Richmond, Chantelle A. M., and Catherine Cook. ‘Creating Conditions for Canadian Aboriginal Health Equity: The Promise of Healthy Public Policy’. Public Health Reviews 37 (20 July 2016): 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40985-016-0016-5.

Hervé, Caroline, Pascale Laneuville, and Luc Lapointe. ‘Participatory Action Research with Inuit Societies: A Scoping Review’. Polar Record 59 (January 2023): e22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247423000128.

Richmond, Chantelle A. M., and Catherine Cook. ‘Creating Conditions for Canadian Aboriginal Health Equity: The Promise of Healthy Public Policy’. Public Health Reviews 37, no. 1 (20 July 2016): 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40985-016-0016-5.
 

Book chapters:

Cullen, Miriam, and Nivikka Langstrup Witjes. ‘Losing Home without Going Anywhere: Inuit in Greenland and the Conceptualization of Climate-Related Displacement’. In Nordic Approaches to Climate-Related Human Mobility, edited by Miriam Cullen and Scott Matthew, 1st ed., 168. London: Routledge, 2024. 

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003460985.

 

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