NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US

With files from the NunatuKavut Community Council (NCC)

Dr. Debbie Martin has written an independent rebuttal in response to the report “Examining the NunatuKavut Community Council’s Land Claim” commissioned by the Nunatsiavut Government and written by Darryl Leroux, who is an associate professor at SMU.

“The conclusions drawn by Leroux are false. When we undertake research that impacts Indigenous peoples, it is vitally important that we consider the colonial context in which Indigenous research is mired," says Dr. Martin. "This is as true in Labrador as it is anywhere. The colonial narrative ‘about us’ is often so deeply accepted as ‘fact’ or ‘truth’ that outsiders continue to draw upon it, justify it, and uphold it, even when it is hurting us. Colonial research conveniently forgets that we have our own ways of doing things, our own ways of validating who we are and where we come from.”

Dr. Martin is an Inuk Professor at Dalhousie University is also a member of NunatuKavut. She is also a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples Health and Well-Being, and a full professor of Health Promotion in the Faculty of Health.

A link to Dr. Martin’s rebuttal report can be found here: We Have Always Been Here