Rethinking Place in Planning: Opportunities in Northern and Aboriginal Planning in Nunavut, Canada.

In recent years, there has been a movement towards more grassroots-modelled collaborative planning approaches in Northern Canada. These approaches have frequently been directed at heightening the relevance of social policy, particularly within the context of Northern and Aboriginal self-determination. This paper acknowledges the potential of fledgling governance directives aimed at Northern empowerment. However, it argues that these directives require a more precise focus on place conceptualisation to ensure context sensitivities are appropriately addressed. Informed by the experiences of Northern practitioners, the paper suggests that Nunavut is well-situated to embrace a democratic planning mandate centred on place conceptualisation. This is to the extent that the decision-making cultures of remote Northern communities meet the conditions required for processes of interpretive place construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]