“We don’t have a lot of trees, but by God, do we have a lot of fish”: imagining postcolonial futures for the Nunatsiavut fishing industry

Abstract

Telling stories can be an empowering exercise, providing important insights into the values and priorities of the storytellers. This article shares stories told during a participatory scenario planning process among Inuit, an Indigenous People of northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, USA. This research takes place in Nunatsiavut, a land claim area in Labrador, Canada, to explore how visions provide insights into postcolonial futures for the fishing industry. Beginning in 2019, a group of fisheries stakeholders and managers came together to create a visioning process that would help them to develop consensus around priorities for the industry. Facilitated by university researchers, Inuit in the commercial fishing industry participated in an iterative data-collection process that involved interviews and a workshop. This article shares what was found during the scenario-planning process and position stories of the future within the context of Indigenous sovereignty.