Patricia Johnson Castle

Patricia is a second-generation urban Inuk from St John's, Newfoundland. Her ânak (paternal grandmother) was born on the land in Tishialuk, Labrador (now within the semi-autonomous region of Nunatsiavut). She is also of British and German descent. While living in South Africa, Patricia studied isiXhosa where the language distinguishes between going to the house where one lives and one's ancestral village ("ndiya ekhaya" vs "ndiya goduka"). This moment was a key one in reorienting her scholarship and activism to the North and to her own ancestors. She began by moving to Nain, Nunatsiavut to work as Director of Policy and Planning for the Nunatsiavut Government for almost 3 years. Living in the village allowed Patricia to reconnect with her home territory, extended family, and cultural traditions like sewing and qajaqing. Her PhD project works to reclaim Inuit intellectual traditions within Inuit qaujimajatuqangit ("what Inuit have always known to be true") towards building an Inuit framework for historical interpretation. Geographically, the project zooms in on the Labrador-Ungava peninsula which has historically been treated as a unified region by Inuit but has been split into two by the Canadian imperial project in the North. Patricia's ancestors were missionized by Moravians — a small Protestant sect from central Europe who also established missions in Greenland, the Caribbean, South Africa, the continental US, and Alaska. Though there are extensive archives associated with Inuit in Nunatsiavut very little work has been done to bring this history to light until now.

In addition to her academic work, Patricia had an illustrious career as a parliamentary debater. She ranked 30th at the 2017 World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC) in Mexico City with her teammate Emma Buckland. She served as head equity officer for WUDC 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, and as chief and deputy chief adjudicator at a significant number of tournaments in North America and South Africa. Her true joy was coaching debating with high school students particularly with projects like the Thethani Debating League which provides debating as an extracurricular in township schools in Cape Town.