Media, identity, and international relations: The Arctic and Inuit in film and Canada's Arctic foreign policy

Beginning with the assertion that much of what is known about the Canadian Arctic and the Inuit has to do with popular culture and international relations, this dissertation explores the formation of knowledge about the Canadian Arctic and Inuit through an intertextual analysis of film and Canada's Arctic foreign policy from WWII to 2007. Drawing on postcolonial and critical theories of international relations and security studies, film studies, and literary criticism, this dissertation identifies themes, characters and actors, settings, and techniques of representation as intertexts produced by film and discourses in Canada's Arctic foreign policy. It is found that film and Canada's Arctic foreign policy have identified and defined the Arctic space through a theme of militarization, have represented the Arctic space as an empty, marginal setting lacking intrinsic worth, and have used white-settler technologies of cartography and surveillance as techniques to make the Arctic a knowable space. Inuit have been represented and defined through a theme of tradition and modernity as peoples who are invisible non-actors or are subjugated and subservient, as understood through white-settler technologies of exclusion and surveillance. These intertexts connect with a larger system of meaning that is underpinned by colonial knowledge, in which it is common sense to think about the Arctic and Inuit in particular ways.;Additionally, through Inuit films and Inuit circumpolar transnational relations, this dissertation shows how Inuit have challenged knowledge created by film and Canada's Arctic foreign policy. The theme of participation through representation, the identification of Inuit as legitimate actors and characters, the representation of the Arctic setting as Nunaat (Inuit homeland), and the use of techniques of representation that promote Inuit identities are intertexts produced by Inuit film and Inuit circumpolar transnational relations. These intertexts connect with a larger system of meaning which challenges white-settler common sense knowledge about the Arctic and Inuit. The knowledge underpinning this alternative system of meaning is Inuit, as it is shaped by Inuit actors and is a part of Inuit Knowledge (Inuit Quajimajatuqangit). It is also postcolonial, as it questions and challenges white-settler forms of knowledge and representation.