“You have no other choice”: Structural Impediments to Food Security and Sovereignty in the Canadian Arctic

Abstract

This paper examines the food system of the community of Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada. We draw on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork observations to describe the structural constraints Inuit face in food provisioning. While high costs of living and poverty shape Inuit access to food, we attend to the larger structural forces that underlie those factors and how Inuit manage them. We also examine social support structures, including income support, housing subsidies, and food banks. We argue that the problem of Inuit food security is rooted in extractive economic relationships between northern consumers and southern markets. However, research on Inuit food security locates the problem, and proposes solutions, at the individual level, rather than in broader structural factors. Our findings point towards food sovereignty as a better framework for studying and strengthening northern food systems. Achieving Arctic food sovereignty requires confronting the ongoing colonial nature of north – south and government – Indigenous relations in Canada when it comes to the food environment and government support systems.