Amauti podcasts: sharing knowledge, science and experiences across the arctic and professional fields of expertise

Abstract

This proceedings paper describes the work done with communicating scientific research and knowledge in and from the Arctic about pregnancy, birth, and child-rearing in the AMAUTI Podcasts series. The podcast series consists of 5 episodes in English and one in Kalaallisut (Greenlandic), and all episodes consists of one interview with a researcher or knowledge-holder.

AMAUTI PODCASTS - Back in 2023, Ruth Montgomery-Andersen came to me with an idea—what if we communicated the work of researchers and knowledge-holders in the field of pregnancy, birth, and child rearing in the Arctic in a podcast series? This piece describes the process and why I believe this method of knowledge-sharing is more important than ever.

AMAUTI PODCASTS is a series of interviews with researchers and knowledge-holders about pregnancy, birth, and child rearing in the Arctic, conducted by researcher, PhD-student, and sound designer Siri Paulsen who is Inuk and born and raised in Nuuk, Kalaallit Nunaat, Tromsø, Norway and Ålsgårde, Denmark. The podcast series is produced by Sialuk Productions in collaboration with Susan Chatwood, Ruth Montgomery-Andersen, and Christine Ingemann. ¹

As an Inuk mother of two who gave birth to my first child in Nuuk, Kalaallit Nunaat, I have often thought of what it must have been like to become a mother before sterile clean environments, central heating and medical expertise as guidance: the very intense experience of pregnancy and birth, not to mention the surprisingly painful experience it is for a mother as she and her child learn how to breastfeed, in the midst of recovery on no sleep. My grandmother gave birth to nine children, and my mother, who was child number five, remembers the last couple of births. The intensity. Being asked to run to get the little town’s doula. I imagine my mother as a child, helping by washing cloths and floors, getting excited and listening to stories told in the living room. When I interviewed the researchers and knowledge-holders in the Arctic for AMAUTI Podcasts, I learned that the expertise has always been there. Our expectations of what knowledge looks like and who carries it, is what has changed. I also learned that it doesn’t have to feel sterile and unpersonal for the mother and baby to be taken well care of.

An example is what the researcher and former director of the Institute of Circumpolar Health Research Kimberly Fairman shared with listeners in the interview I conducted with her in March 2024 in Copenhagen in connection to a health conference. The audio recording is revealing the impact of what that conversation had on me and my understanding of self and of my culture, yet profoundly professional and matter-of-factly.

Something happens when mothers meet to talk about the process of giving birth in a theoretical, professional context: we start to talk about what actually happens during birth. We carry memories from some of the most impactful moments of our lives and therefore cannot treat it as fiction or theory. We, very quickly, end up talking about our own experiences—especially as Inuit who have experienced giving birth away from home. And by that, I mean outside our hometown, away from our communities, families, cultures. One might think that personal experiences may not speak to what happens overall, it is not representative of everyone. While I recognize that one person could never speak the truth of a whole community, I do want to underline that when a researcher is willing to use their own experiences, it can help us understand to what depth the emotional impact of ill-working framework and rulemaking can have on people, when it is systematically designed for efficiency and “risk assessment” from a different cultural standpoint than the community it is supposed to take care of. Here is what Fairman experienced:

“There were a lot of things that were very hurtful about having to leave my community to have my babies - particularly after the first one was born and you have to leave the first baby and the father at home to have the next baby. It felt very removed; my birthing experience was always very separate from a feeling of belonging and having my culture supported and having people around me who could be supportive”.

While the personal experience might not speak for everyone, and one experience should not make rules for the masses, it is such a force for the sciences related to pregnancy, birth and child-rearing, that someone like Fairman carries both knowledge from her home community elders as well as the field of research. In her role, she might be able to spot exactly where the systems don’t work for the people of the Arctic and spot where the problems lie. We were talking about how policies were not working well when it comes to pressuring women to give birth away from home communities in the Arctic, in order to access full hospital service and reduce risks in a standard western medical understanding of risk assessment:

“I think that part of the issue is around how we measure risk in a medical context. For example: It may seem to be very risky for a woman to have a baby in a community where there is no tertiary care. […] I think from talking to my elders and particularly other women who had helpers deliver their babies on the land—which was only one generation before me—they talk a lot about how childbirth wasn’t thought of as a risky thing. It was a very natural thing that happened. Women were familiar with the process. They were very familiar in supporting other women who had babies, and they knew the multiple things that could be different between women’s experiences. Another thing is that the person who is going to help you will get to know you from early in the pregnancy, so there is a relationship that develops where there is trust, so that person can coach you, and make you aware of your own strength and ability to do it. Not just physically, but also culturally, emotionally and mentally as well”.

As it turns out, part of the issues of birth care in the Arctic is the situation where most women who are not initially categorized as having high-risk pregnancies end up feeling pacified, restless and homesick, waiting for their birth to start in an unfamiliar hospital or temporary hospital housing. The new question becomes: is it actually lower risk to remove women from their homes just before the birthing process?

This meeting between an Inuk researcher from Nunavut and an Inuk producer from Kalaallit Nunaat felt immediately meaningful on a personal level, but as time went on and I started traveling to Yellowknife (Northwest Territories, Canada), and Iqaluit (Nunavut, Canada) it became clear that we, with one researcher and a sound recorder, have the all the necessary resources to gather valuable information, that we share our knowledge and values with each other, and re-root our Indigenous knowledge as an alternative and a source of cultural ballast for Indigenous women who are on a path towards birth and childrearing. Simultaneously the podcast series should serve as an insight to our cultures and our struggles for health professionals or health researchers.

In my conversation with Rassi Nashalik in Yellowknife, she shared the process of how pregnancy and birth was seen in her upbringing as something that is a natural part of life. In between her stories and appeals to young Inuit, she shares the cultural way of connecting to each other, such as the relationship you have with the midwife or doula who helped your arrival Earthside.

In the end, AMAUTI podcasts is about connection—reconnecting Indigenous ways from one Indigenous community to another. Reminding each other, that Indigenous tradition is knowledge that holds importance in itself, and that this knowledge is worth integrating in the systems that are supposed to take care of us.

I am not one to make meddle in other people’s medical decision-making, period. In my other work and research, I do not talk about medicine whatsoever, but focus on our storytelling and narratives, on archives and the West’s view on the indigenous. However, I am proud of this series of interviews asking important questions: what does health mean to Inuit and the people of the Arctic? What are Inuit women and families missing in the process of growing their families? What if we consider that current medical programs offer cultural layers that are just not noticed because they are based on a majority culture: what if we recognize that feeling culturally met and feel safe is important? Mostly, attempting to answer these questions open to more questions, but hopefully listeners of AMAUTI Podcasts feel like there is a public space where we can openly discuss what knowledge means, and what is important when the medical system meets becoming mothers or patients.

Funding Statement

This study was supported by NAPA Nordic Institute in Greenland.