Comfort theory

This papers draws on a five-month ethnography among the urban Inuit community of Ottawa. The focus is on the challenges that Inuit youth face during everyday life in an urban environment and the strategies they develop as a means to overcome those challenges. Being connected with the world(s) surrounding them - what Wilson (2008) calls relationality - appeared to be central in the way that Inuit youth feel and orientate themselves in the city. Connectedness for Inuit youth refers to close and significant relationships with people, ancestors, future generations, objects, animals and nature. These represent elements of the Inuit universe of meanings and, more largely, indigenous universes of meanings. Therefore, being comfortable is intrinsically linked to the maintenance of harmonious relationships with these different actors. Thus, having difficulties in encountering or building meaningful relationships greatly affects their ease in the diverse worlds they engage.
As we will see, in urban milieus, like Ottawa, a diversity of universes of meanings unfolds and some of them are very foreign to Inuit youth. Nevertheless, youth develops strategies to establish relationships within the city. They acquaint themselves with the urban worlds and its inhabitants, but also find ways to evacuate the stress generated by these new living conditions. As Ottawa hosts one of the largest Inuit communities outside the Inuit Nunangat, Inuit youth can connect to the Inuit worlds and, in doing so, benefit from Inuit and other indigenous organizations’ support. Thus, the urban challenges young Inuit face are mitigated by this particular context.