Ice and the Climate of Philosophy in Canada

In 2015, Sheila Watt-Cloutier published The Right to Be Cold, in which she set out her Inuit and climate-change activism. She says that “ice is the life force” of the Inuit. In this article, I use Lorraine Code’s method of “ecological thinking” to understand how Watt-Cloutier’s thought grows out of her Inuit habitus and, more broadly, out of her habitus as a Canadian. I first argue, using Rupert Lodge, that Watt-Cloutier’s thought constitutes an “applied philosophy.” I further argue that Watt-Cloutier’s view of the environment is part of one kind of Canadian habitus, using the view of nature in George Blewett’s philosophy. Finally, I analyze Watt-Cloutier’s use of the concept of human rights to advocate for the Inuit “right to be cold” to show that her thought can be fruitfully understood as an interplay between her Inuit habitus and her Canadian habitus.