Inuit men hindered in work, education and community engagement: report

Ilitaqsiniq-Nunavut Literacy Council recently published the report What About Our Men? The community-based research found that colonial trauma and racism are both major hurdles to learning and employment for northern Indigenous men, including Inuit.

Northern Indigenous men face a number of barriers to community engagement, employment and education, new Nunavut-based research finds — issues which men want broader support to help overcome.

The Northern Men’s research project, initiated by the Ilitaqsiniq-Nunavut Literacy Council, recently published its findings gathered from more than four years of community-based research.

Working with literacy councils in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Newfoundland and Labrador during that time, researchers met with 200 First Nations, Métis and Inuit men to help identify those men’s concerns.

“The impetus behind the research was to find out what some of the factors are that are contributing to men’s engagement, or disengagement,” said Shelley Tulloch, a University of PEI sociologist who helped prepare the report, “and secondly and what would be effective programs.”

“But when we looked at other research, there was really nothing that identified men’s experiences as distinct.”

Tulloch notes that the men interviewed did not wish to put their issues above those of women. Respondents felt programming geared to northern Indigenous women was valuable and necessary, she said.

“But there was a feeling that men’s voices weren’t heard in certain areas,” Tulloch said.

“And that was also expressed by Inuit women, who stressed the need for both Inuit men and women to be whole in order to build healthy communities.”

The group’s report, released earlier this month, found that colonial trauma and racism are both major hurdles to learning and employment for northern Indigenous men.

But resilience and success are often linked to those men who have pursued healing and a connection to the land, the report found.

Programs and policies that contribute to Indigenous men’s participation are those that have been decolonized: designed to respect and integrate Indigenous culture and knowledge.

In speaking with men, researchers found a common theme in the respondents’ own definition of success was what the T’licho call being “strong like two men,” which is the ability to thrive in both traditional and modern lifestyles.

The report showed northern First Nations, Métis and Inuit men attached a practical and symbolic importance in taking part in cultural and subsistence practices — skills that may not necessarily have a monetary value attached.

Despite the traumatic legacy of residential schools, researchers also found men still value schooling as a means to secure work and care for one’s family.

And most respondents rejected the myth of the disengaged man noting that federally-collected statistics do not reflect Indigenous values.

Statistics do paint a portrait of a gender gap, in Nunavut at least, where a public service report found 70 per cent of Inuit employed by the Government of Nunavut are female, compared to 30 per cent for Inuit men.

Nunavummiut who took part in the research confirmed that men are under-represented in other kinds of employment and education, the report noted.

In all the efforts Inuit women have made to become successful mothers, professionals, leaders, hunters and seamstresses, one question struck Rankin Inlet elder Quluaq Pilakapsi.

“What about our men?” asked Pilakapsi, who at the time worked as an Inuktitut resource development coordinator at Ilitaqsiniq – Nunavut Literacy Council.

“What About the Men” became the report’s title.

“Men have gaps in their education as well as limited opportunities to learn… I would like to see men of all generations supported and uplifted to feel strong, confident, and capable,” she said.

“What About the Men” makes some recommendations on how to better support men’s livelihoods and well-being, by:

• broadening the sense of learning and work to reflect the range in northern Indigenous men’s skill sets;

• opening wider spaces for men’s voices to self-define. One suggestion in the report is to develop land camps and men’s groups — a movement that is gradually expanding into Inuit communities;

• funding more infrastructure: the absence of basic facilities to host gatherings or training is a major barrier to programming in Nunavut, respondents said;

• decolonizing practices, including valuing and using Indigenous knowledge specific to men’s expertise; and,

• increasing awareness and cross-cultural training for non-Indigenous people.

The research project took place from 2011-2015, and relied on 11 community-based researchers. In Nunavut, these included Noel Kaludjak, Quluaq Pilakapsi and Adrianna Kusugak, who works for Ilitaqsiniq-Nunavut Literacy Council in Rankin Inlet.

What About the Men? Northern Men s Research Project Summary Report