CSPC 2017

Panel Organizer: Jennifer Sokol, Polar Knowledge Canada

The planet is experiencing exponential change, and the Arctic is warming at an accelerated pace, resulting in many environmental, social and economic implications.  Western science cannot answer all the questions and is only part of the solution.  Indigenous people have been surviving in the Arctic for centuries; they have made observations, tracked animals, lived across the North and are connected to the land and water.  This session will address the challenges involved when gathering scientific knowledge from the Canadian Arctic, and the need to gather knowledge in a way that builds on and respects our past, while using the latest technology and anticipating the scientific needs of future. The panel will discuss how the coproduction of knowledge, where western science and Indigenous knowledge is collected together and used as equal ways of knowing, results in an innovative new type of knowledge. This knowledge would not be produced without the collective interaction of both knowledge systems at the same time. As Canada celebrates its 150 anniversary, what better time to recognize Canada’s first peoples, the value of Indigenous and traditional/local knowledge, and the need to equally integrate all ways of knowing as we journey into the next 150 years.