Funded Master’s Student Opportunity - Project on Water and Extractive Industries in Nunavut 2025-2027
Funded Master’s Student Project on Water and Extractive Industries in Nunavut 2025-2027
Freshwater in the Canadian North is facing increasing pressures due to climate change and extractive industries, making sustainable water governance more important than ever. However, comparatively little research has examined decision-making about freshwater in the North. We are recruiting one Master’s student to develop a social science research project related to water and resource development in Nunavut. More specifically, the student will examine the role of water in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, 1993) and decision-making in co-management institutions such as the Nunavut Impact Review Board and the Nunavut Water Board. This project will build on existing research and practice on Indigenous water governance or Indigenous relationships with water, governance systems and modes of interacting with decision-making processes about water, informed by historical and ongoing colonialism (e.g. Craft 2018; Daigle 2018; McGregor 2014; Wilson et al. 2021) including research conducted on water cogovernance in other northern jurisdictions where modern land claim agreements are in place such as Yukon (Wilson, 2020, 2019). The research will contribute to debates about the evolving relationship between extraction and colonialism in the North (Bernauer, 2019; Hall, 2021; Scottie et al., 2022) as well as the opportunities and challenges created by resource co-management (Cameron & Kennedy, 2023; Dokis, 2016; Peletz et al., 2020).
Details
The student will be required to apply for admission to the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, MB to commence studies in September 2025.
They will benefit from the dynamic and collaborative research environment provided by the department and the broader university including a community of research and practice related to sustainable and just water governance through the Environmental Governance and Change Lab, United Nations Academic Impact Hub for Sustainable Development Goal 6, the Centre for Human Rights Research and more.
The successful candidate will receive a minimum annual stipend of $22,000 for two years and will be required to apply for external funding (including University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowships, Tri-Council Awards, Northern Scientific Training Program grants, etc.).
The student will be co-supervised by Nicole J. Wilson and Warren Bernauer.
Qualifications
The successful applicant will have:
• A bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, geography, or a similar field.
• Familiarity with areas of study including water governance and policy, Indigenous governance, and resource development and Arctic studies.
• Knowledge of social science research methods (qualitative, quantitative, and/or spatial).
• Experience with, and commitment to, community engaged research and practice (ideally in partnership with Inuit or another Indigenous rightsholder group).
• While all qualified candidates with relevant interests and experience are encouraged to apply, preference will be given to Indigenous applicants.
How to apply
Send a CV, unofficial transcript, and cover letter to Dr. Warren Bernauer (
Please note that only short-listed candidates will be contacted.
References
Bernauer, W. (2019). The limits to extraction: Mining and colonialism in Nunavut. Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue Canadienne d’études Du Développement, 40(3), 404–422.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2019.1629883
Cameron, E., & Kennedy, S. (2023). Can Environmental Assessment Protect Caribou? Analysis of EA in Nunavut, Canada, 1999-2019. Conservation and Society, 21(2), 121.
https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_54_22
Craft, A. (2018). Navigating Our Ongoing Sacred Legal Relationship with Nibi (Water). In A. Craft, B. L. Gunn, C. Knockwood, G. Christie, H. Askew, J. Borrows, J. Nichols, K. Wilkins, L. Chartrand, & O. Fitzgerald (Eds.), UNDRIP Implementation: More Reflections on the Braiding of International, Domestic and Indigenous Laws (pp. 53–62). Centre for International Governance Innovation.
https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/documents/UNDRIP%20Fall%202018%20lowres.pdf
Daigle, M. (2018). Resurging through Kishiichiwan: The spatial politics of Indigenous water relations. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 7(1), 159–172.
Dokis, C. A. (2016). Where the Rivers Meet: Pipelines, Participatory Resource Management, and AboriginalState Relations in the Northwest Territories (Reprint edition). UBC Press.
Hall, R. (2021). Indigenous/state relations and the “Making” of surplus populations in the mixed economy of Northern Canada. Geoforum, 126, 461–470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.01.013
McGregor, D. (2014). Traditional Knowledge and Water Governance: The ethic of responsibility. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 10(5), 493–507.
https://doi.org/10.1177/117718011401000505
Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (1993). https://www.gov.nu.ca/sites/default/files/files/013%20-%20NunavutLand-Claims-Agreement-English.pdf
Peletz, N., Hanna, K., & Noble, B. (2020). The central role of Inuit Qaujimaningit in Nunavut’s impact assessment process. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 38(5), 412–426.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2020.1786763
Scottie, J., Bernauer, W., & Hicks, J. (2022). I Will Live for Both of Us: A History of Colonialism, Uranium Mining, and Inuit Resistance. University of Manitoba Press.
Wilson, N. J. (2019). “Seeing Water Like a State?”: Indigenous water governance through Yukon First Nation Self-Government Agreements. Geoforum, 104, 101–113.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.05.003
Wilson, N. J. (2020). Querying Water Co-Governance: Yukon First Nations and Water Governance in the Context of Modern Land Claim Agreements. Water Alternatives, 13(1), 93–118.
Wilson, N. J., Montoya, T., Arseneault, R., & Curley, A. (2021). Governing water insecurity: Navigating indigenous water rights and regulatory politics in settler