ALBERT

Description: This perspective presents a statement of the 10th International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences Indigenous Knowledge and knowledge co-production panel and discussion group, 20 July 2021. The statement is designed to serve as a characterization of the state-of-the-art and guidance for further advancement of Indigenous Knowledge and knowledge co-production in the Arctic. It identifies existing challenges and provides specific recommendations for researchers, Indigenous communities, and funding agencies on meaningful recognition and engagement of Indigenous Knowledge systems.

Description: Truly transdisciplinary approaches are needed to tackle the complex problems that the Arctic is facing at the moment. Collaboration between Indigenous rights holders and researchers through co-creative research approaches can result in high-quality research outcomes, but crucially also address colonial legacies and power imbalances, enhance mutual trust, and respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples. However, to be successful, collaborative research projects have specific requirements regarding research designs, timeframes, and dissemination of results, which often do not fit into the frameworks of academic calendars and funding guidelines. Funding agencies in particular play an important role in enabling (or disabling) meaningful collaboration between Indigenous rights holders and researchers. There is an urgent need to re-think existing funding-structures. This article will propose a new paradigm for the financing of Arctic research, which centres around the inclusion of Indigenous partners, researchers, and institutions from the initial planning stages of funding programmes to the final stages of research projects. These findings and recommendations have been contextualized based on critical reflections of the co-authors, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners, who have practiced their own collaborative work process, the challenges encountered, and lessons learned.

Description: The "Comprehensive Policy Brief to the EU Commission - Roadmap to Decolonial Arctic Research" is an evidence-based tool for achieving decolonial innovation in methodology and funding mechanisms in the Arctic research landscape, including the natural and social sciences and the humanities. In four concise chapters, the group of experts, consisting of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and Indigenous rights holders, 1) guide the readership through the legal and political dimensions as well as that of research innovation and paradigmatic shifts in Arctic research; 2) it offers concrete methodological considerations in carrying out projects; 3) it elaborates on the participation of Indigenous rights holders in the EU research funding structures from a practice perspective. 4) it outlines the benefits of Indigenous-led Arctic research and of funding co-creative projects. This Roadmap can support the mainstreaming of co-creative and collaborative principles and equal partnership by Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors in 1) large-scale research projects, 2) calls for projects, 3) proposal design and project evaluation, and 4) in the implementation of the European Polar Research Program. At the international level, the rights of Indigenous Peoples have been receiving increasing legal recognition. Similarly, EU calls-for-proposals ask nowadays increasingly for a ‘co-design approach’ in research (e.g., in the past Horizon 2020, and the current Horizon Europe funding schemes). Arctic researchers are increasingly adopting decolonial research approaches. Yet implementing decolonial research practices as new standards and taking initiative that supports Indigenous sovereignty in the Arctic is often still lacking. Therefore, theoretical and methodological expertise about co-creation of knowledge, as offered in this Roadmap, can help to foster capacity among researchers in all disciplines (natural and social sciences, the humanities) and among the relevant funding bodies such as the EU Commission and the large variety of international and national funding organisations.

Description: The chapter provides an overview of contemporary religious and secular festivals today in Siberia, which have originated in diverse Indigenous religious practices, institutionalized religion, and the secularized rituals of Soviet times. Many public festivals like the Sakha “Yhyakh” or the widespread “Day of the Reindeer Herder” serve as displays of ethnic identity, but Siberian feasting culture contains also intimate and sometimes hidden local ritual practices like shamanic rituals, sacrificial rituals, or the bear ceremonialism celebrating and negotiating the relations to supernatural power and non-human agents. The chapter will explore how Siberian feasts and ritual practices can represent, perform, and also transform social relations in local communities and the society at large.

Description: Key message: A decolonial approach is needed to fulfil IASC’s commitment to recognizing that Traditional Knowledge, Indigenous Knowledge and academic scientific knowledge are co-equal and complementary knowledge systems that all can and should inform its work (website ICARP IV, retrieved October 2023). This document summarizes key recommendations for actions regarding five themes: 1. Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination as a prerequisite for high-quality Arctic research 2. Ethics, methods and methodology as key for decolonial research 3. Indigenous-led research in design and practice 4. Indigenous Peoples’ co-equal participation in Arctic research funding structures and decision-making for securing decolonial Arctic research in practice 5. Funding for Co-Creative and Indigenous-Led Arctic Research