Communicating science from the Arctic: A collaborative protocol to mitigate harm

Abstract

Scientists increasingly engage communities living in researched places as an attempt to mitigate harm and produce more equitable research. However, these efforts are not always successful. This paper focuses on the communication of research to the wider world, a key area of activity that is seldom undertaken jointly. Research communications and outputs may unintentionally reinforce harmful ideas and actions that disbenefit communities. For example, they may represent people as passive victims of environmental change, or call for solutions that appear to resolve one problem but have damaging side effects. Instead, through co-production, communities can assert shared ownership of communications, identify risks and priorities, and control the representation of land, water, and people in academic and public debates and in policy. This paper reports the process by which a communications protocol was developed collaboratively by community researchers and academics, for a study of Inuvialuit youth resilience and innovative adaptation to climate change. It discusses the implementation of the protocol, which we suggest has potential for wider use in scientific research. The paper provides researchers with a template that may be adapted for different studies, issues, and communities. This Collaborative Perspective, co-authored by Inuvialuit, Canadian and UK academic and community researchers, aims to contribute to the growing literatures on science co-production and community self-determination in research and its impacts. The critical discussion is situated in imperatives to decolonise research processes, responding to calls from Indigenous scientists to disrupt the hegemony of western scientific knowledge.