An indigenous community-led project in Nunavik: a story of self-determination and resistance amidst the ongoing presence of coloniality

In the struggle for self-determination, Indigenous communities in Canada have been developing community-based health and social services to support family and community wellbeing. In the development of these initiatives, non-Indigenous actors, are sometimes involved. These relationships cannot be dissociated from coloniality and colonial history, yet the specific influences of external support on the development of Indigenous-led community-based projects are not well understood. Research in international development highlights the need for deeper understandings of these dynamics to strengthen self-determination. Working with a decolonial and relational approach, this organizational ethnography uses storytelling with key members of the Ilagiinut project to articulate the changing relationships between Inuit and non-Inuit partners in an Inuit-led community Family House organization in Nunavik. The study illustrates the ways in which coloniality can interfere with the development of an organization and how resistance offers possibilities to uphold Inuit ways of knowing, of doing and of leading in this field.