Academics at the University Level Acknowledge Canada Awakening's Healing the Land Process in Northern Canada
The Religion of Nature: Evangelical Perspectives on the Environment by Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, professors of Anthropology at Laval University and Leiden University respectively.
https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/etudinuit/2010-v34-n1-etudinuit3992/045405ar/
Article Abstract:
"In this paper we examine recent developments in Evangelical movements among the Inuit of the Canadian Eastern Arctic. We focus especially on Canada Awakening Ministries (CAM) and show how it successfully integrates traditional Inuit ideas and values in a modern Christian perspective. We explore how elders are given a more prominent role in the “healing the land” rituals and how traditional elements are becoming part of a Christian context. We examine CAM’s critical views on radical environmentalist groups and argue that its support of traditional Inuit hunting values through “biblical environmentalism” is bound to strengthen its position in the North."
Mobilizing Inuit Knowledge: Representation and Institutional Mediation in the Era of Global Climate Change by Noor Jehan S. Johnson, Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, pages 123 - 132, 157 - 160.
https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/c821gp498?locale=en
"Healing the Land (HTL)...is based on a theology in which God is the Mediator and ultimate Provider of everything. At the same time, and in contrast to other healing programs, HTL suggests that prayer and repentance will result in good things happening to the land and animals. These associations also contrast with scientific narratives of climate change, which often leave local actors feeling that there is little that they or others can do to counteract climate change...
"Because of the history of conflict with biologists over animal populations, Inuit are at times skeptical when scientists claim expertise about the Arctic environment, particularly when they do so in ways that diminish Inuit understanding and ways of knowing. Over the past decades, through negotiating land claims and establishing the Nunavut government, Inuit have become increasingly attuned to the ways that global networks can impact their lives at the local level.
"Inuit are concerned, for example, that research on polar bear populations and climate change, disseminated through academic journals and environmentalist networks, may result in reduced hunting quotas (Dowsley and Wenzel 2008). As a result, some community members can be skeptical of scientific research, since the power to decide what is researched and how the information is shared rests largely outside local control. Many Inuit feel that their knowledge is still treated as less valuable than scientific knowledge, in spite of the establishment of co-management boards and protocols for local input into wildlife management.
"Scientific researchers, attuned to processes of change that are global in nature, often arrive in northern communities with research agendas that do not correspond to local priorities...HTL sets itself apart from these dynamics by offering a theory of agency that connects group engagement and action with local environmental impact. With its ritualized group healing ceremonies, Healing the Land may appeal to (Inuit) residents because it offers an immediate way to take action, encouraging a sense of collective agency in navigating change...
"In this context, HTL's emphasis on local practices of prayer and healing offers a framework through which community members can directly engage with processes and outcomes of change. HTL's integrated vision links the social world with environmental resilience, offering a way for community members to engage with social issues while also, according to the movement's leaders, supporting the wellbeing of animals and healing the land. By doing so, participants also reframe environmental change as an issue that can be addressed through local agency...
"Social and natural scientists and environmentalists concerned about global environmental change have much to learn from being attentive to the conditions and processes by which alternative narratives of change, such as HTL, gain persuasive power. In Clyde River, the appeal of HTL points simultaneously toward gaps in social policy as well as a sense of alienation from the norms and processes of Western science.
"Most noticeably, the dominant position of scientific knowledge in national and international contexts means that local people rarely set the terms of engagement. Yet from the perspective of community members, what is most important is not so much the acquisition of scientific knowledge as it is being able to address the issues that they find most pressing in their own lives, such as the availability of game or the maintenance of social harmony" (pages 157 - 160).
Reconnecting People and Healing the Land: Inuit Pentecostal and Evangelical Movements in the Canadian Arctic by Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, professors of Anthropology at Laval University and Leiden University, respectively.
Inuit Shamanism and Christianity, Transitions and Transformations in the Twentieth Century by Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, professors of Anthropology at Laval University and Leiden University respectively, McGill-Queen's University Press, pages 355 - 371 is on Canada Awakening Ministries Healing the Land Process.
