Le Nunavut: Une composition inachevee?

The experience of Nunavut is based on a compromise between the desire of the Inuit to regain some autonomy and the federal government’s wish to ensure its sovereignty over the Canadian Arctic and secure legal certainty for resource development in Nunavut. In this context, one may wonder whether the Nunavut government is giving the Inuit more autonomy or whether it is simply a postcolonial structure that responds mainly to Western norms of rationality. Latour’s concept of “composition” offers us a way to understand the relationships between Inuit and Western processes of governing in Nunavut. In this article, the interrelationships among actors, visions, and institutions therefore form a framework for our analysis of the composition of Nunavut. After characterizing the process of governance in Inuit societies, we will see via analysis of Nunavut compromises, institutions, and practices how Inuit governance and Western governmental rationality interact in the new territory.