First fieldwork in South Greenland
What it means to conduct research with a community under economic pressure, external attention, and research fatigue
The ArcticKnows Kujataa pilot team consists of four members. Kristine Lynge-Pedersen from Greenland Institute for Natural Resources (GINR) and Rikke Becker Jakobsen, Carine Ren and Astrid O. Andersen from Aalborg University (AAU). Due to upcoming deadlines, two from the team traveled to South Greenland to conduct fieldwork during the period from 23 February to 7 March 2026. Over the course of thirteen days, researchers Kristine and Rikke travelled between Qaqortoq, Narsaq and Qassiarsuk, three communities spread across a large and logistically demanding area, conducting fieldwork along two parallel tracks:
- (a) conducting interviews on local participation in democratic engagement processes, and
- (b) facilitating co-creation workshops aimed at designing an upcoming public PPGIS-based participatory mapping survey.
Kristine Lynge-Pedersen from GINR and Rikke Becker Jakobsen from AAU
A region in transition under pressure
South Greenland is known as the country’s “breadbasket”, characterized by traditional sheep farming, fisheries and agriculture. At the same time, it is a region undergoing economic challenges and rapid change. A new regional airport in Qaqortoq has recently opened, while the airport in Narsarsuaq has closed. Tourism, especially cruise visits are growing, mining activities are developing, and external actors are increasingly showing interest in the region and its resources.
Amid these transformations, parts of the Kujataa community are striving to maintain a way of life, cultural heritage, and relationship to land and sea that cannot easily be translated into economic terms.
The citizens who participated in our research activities were characterised by willingness to engage, sharing strong ideas, and a desire to see their region thrive. They contributed their time despite work pressures, uncertainty, and competing demands. This generosity cannot be taken for granted and is something we are committed to reciprocating.
A total of 22 participants took part in the three PPGIS workshops held in Qaqortoq, Narsaq and Qassiarsuk, all conducted in Kalaallisut, in accordance with participants’ preferences. 11 qualitative interviews were carried out in Qaqortoq and Narsaq, with half conducted in Greenlandic and the remainder in Danish or both languages.
Language is not merely a practical consideration. It is an ethical matter and a question of rights, shaping who participates and how knowledge is produced or shared.
At the same time, we entered a context characterised by research fatigue. Several actors did not respond to our invitations, while others declined to participate, often citing time constraints or previous experiences with research projects that had not resulted in visible local benefits. In this context, it became essential that our local researcher, Kristine Lynge-Pedersen, could draw on her personal network to establish contact, build trust, and recruit local informants and participants. The other researcher, Rikke Becker Jakobsen, brings many years of experience working in Greenland, contributing to a respectful and context-sensitive approach in engaging with participants and collaborators.
This points to an important insight: access to local communities is not only a matter of methodology, but of relationships, and of a history shaped by the risk of “hit-and-run research”, where data is extracted without generating local value.
Working long-term and in dialogue
This requires working closely with local actors to shape both approach and activities, ensuring that the knowledge generated is also locally relevant and useful, and contributing tangible and meaningful outcomes. It also entails a sustained presence over time, not only during periods of fieldwork with data collection, but through ongoing engagement via phone calls and online meetings.
When relational work is not shared
At the same time, the work of building relationships and enabling participation must be shared among all researchers involved. This relational work, which is time-consuming and often “invisible” in research processes, otherwise risks falling disproportionately on local researchers. Our fieldwork experiences show that this work is essential for gaining access and building trust, and therefore requires joint responsibility, clear anchoring, and adequate resources.
Without a shared foundation of responsibility and effort, this work risks being implicitly placed on locally based researchers, who are expected to facilitate access, build relationships, and recruit participants. This is not a sustainable division of labour, as it neither makes the scope of the work visible nor ensures a fair distribution of responsibility within the research collaboration.
A research ethics question
This raises important ethical concerns. Considering the CARE principles (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics), which guide ethical research with Indigenous and local communities, it is problematic if relational and trust-based work is, in practice, carried out by local researchers without corresponding influence. This includes situations where influence is limited to timing, while the purpose and framework are predefined. This is also not beneficial for external researchers or for the local community, as research activities that lack shared relational grounding risk becoming less relevant, less sustainable, and more difficult to anchor locally, potentially creating distance, weakening trust, and contributing to research fatigue rather than meaningful collaboration.
The need for concrete and responsibly grounded results
Kujataa is already highly engaged in local activities, and the time available to participate in research is limited. This places an obligation on researchers.
If co-creation is to be meaningful, and if research is to benefit local communities, research activities must deliver concrete, usable and timely results. Otherwise, we risk reinforcing existing research fatigue. At the same time, research activities must be planned and conducted with respect to local priorities, and with a clear and shared allocation of responsibility and influence.
The next phase will therefore focus on clear communication, concrete deliverables, coordination with local activities, and long-term relationship building. Work will continue within the framework of the existing pilot and research team and the planned activities, to ensure continuity and quality in the ongoing processes.
Future activities and potential visits will, as far as possible, be planned in dialogue with, and preferably by invitation from, the local community, as part of a balanced and responsible approach to co-creation, ensuring that new activities are academically, ethically, and relationally grounded.
For this reason, GINR and AAU have, from the early stages of project development, together as a team, engaged directly with local communities and have since chosen to share the pilot lead as a joint responsibility for relational work to the local community.
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