Engaging in Relational Glaciology: How can we begin?

Written by Keeya Beausoleil (sher/her), MSc Student, University of Idaho

Author, Keeya Beausoleil.

Engaging in Relational Glaciology: How can we begin?

My master’s thesis studies two glaciers I have never visited. I did not collect the data; I inherited it. I became “familiar” with these landscapes through spreadsheets and seismic time series rather than through my own embodied experience. This feeling of estrangement from research that was meant to be my own sparked the beginning of the body of work discussed in this blog. I did not want my thesis to feel as if I owned it, as if these places were only data points and not my relations; instead, knowledge should be cared for through generations, with the Earth as an active knowledge keeper and collaborator.

When I proposed a second chapter of my master’s thesis about understanding decolonial examples in glaciology, my committee supported me. I understood why they had to, and I also knew that saying yes was the limit of what the institution could offer. I was carefully told that my supervisors felt they lacked the expertise to actively navigate this space with me. I have been thoroughly warned to be thoughtful about the image I present in academic spaces and how I invest my time as a researcher. The message beyond these facades was clear: this project existed at the boundaries of what my degree could protect and support.

What originally began as a literature review became something harder to describe as a physical scientist. There was too little to review and too few leaders in physical glaciology actively leading this work in practice. The crevasse gaping between discourse and action was structural, resisting change without some external force. Slowly, this became less about synthesizing existing frameworks and more about beginning to create one.

This post introduces a work-in-progress: “The Decolon-ice-ation of Glaciology”, a set of guiding principles for transforming cryosphere science through relational practices. It is unfinished, leaving many questions unanswered. I am a master’s student who often questions whether I know enough about geophysics, let alone critical theory and Indigenous science, to be saying any of this. But I also know that transformation begins somewhere, and I have the privilege many do not to voice these values and foster collective accountability within academic spaces. Waiting until I feel qualified only perpetuates colonial narratives and keeps the community silent without a space to begin this change.

A photo of a dear friend expressing what I can only imagine to describe as honoring the Earth and the beautiful morning she granted us after a treacherous expedition day. Although the intention behind this moment may have actually been quite silly, this photo always reminds me to express my gratefulness to my landscapes. They are my relations, deserving of simple moments of acknowledgement as a practice of tradition and ceremony.

Situating Myself as a Researcher

My relationship to my Métis identity has been eroded by centuries of deliberate erasure. Cultural genocide across Canada destroyed Métis livelihoods and the ancestral relations to land that carried who we are, living on through a disconnection with community and place that I struggle to reconcile to this day. As a white-presenting student, I have continually felt like an imposter, as though my privilege disqualified me from claiming a heritage I have not suffered enough to earn. Without the racism or the deep-rooted ancestral

upbringing that scientific spaces seem to demand as proof, I found myself doubting my own right to belong both to my Indigeneity and to academia, reproducing the precise narratives that colonial systems depend on.

Geophysics, as a discipline, was built on the assumption that objectivity required separatism from place, from

interconnection, and from a researcher’s own positionality. Bias, uncertainty, and relationality were not simply oversights; they were actively discouraged and corrected. Glaciology further compounds these values through legacies of masculinity, whiteness, and colonialism. The field was founded by European men who conquered foreign, remote landscapes, exploited local communities and resources, and dominated vast, hostile environments. Entering glacier geophysics as a queer Métis woman meant constantly defying these inherited frameworks, while having no choice but to learn and become confined within them. I find myself in constant conflict between the expectations of Western science and the depth of Indigenous scholarship, not because the two are irreconcilable, but because academic institutions act as if they are. There is an unspoken pressure; if I earn credibility in technical geophysical glaciology first, only then will I have earned the right and respect to challenge the system. As if mastering Western science is the price of admission and the evolution of the field must wait until I have proven myself worthy in its existing terms, perpetuating the idea that Western science is more valuable than Indigenous science.

The discourses confronting these challenges feel like whispers that only reach those already invested enoug to seek them out and remain conspicuously absent from research at the forefront of physical glaciology. The broader field appears siloed into social and physical spheres, lacking collaboration as scholars from each discipline feel unequipped to pursue the other and disincentivized to bridge the gap. This left me with an uncomfortable realization: I was reaching for something that may not exist yet, a community, a body of literature, a mentor who was familiar with this landscape who walked this path before me in physical glaciology to show me where it led. Unlike the quantitative techniques I have been trained in, these ways of thinking and being with the Earth do not resolve a clear answer or a single reproducible method. I began creating this space because I was desperate for it to exist, and waiting felt like its own form of assimilation. I must begin embracing connections where I can to ultimately foster a community that welcomes these values, even as a master’s student who often barely feels competent in geophysics, let alone in critical scholarship and Indigenous science. I must take up the space I deserve and reject the power dynamics created to silence me, both outwardly and internalized, to engage in research that pushes the boundaries of what we value as cryosphere science through community, culture, and embodiment.

From these realizations emerges a constellation of questions that this work will not fully answer, but invites us all to consider. What is the source of this disconnect? How can we reimagine glaciology through a lens that holds relational practices, critical theory, and alternative knowledge systems as equal to Western methodologies, rather than supplementary to them? If these ideas already live in social science spaces, what examples and motivations can we draw from to inspire physical glaciologists to move beyond conversation into action? What barriers and support do we need to acknowledge and offer to begin actively engaging in these practices within the physical sciences? What are principles that can guide various disciplines within glaciology and remain approachable to those who consider themselves experts in their field? How can we imagine this future together?

Shattering the Ice: Confronting Barriers to Transforming Glaciology

Across disciplines, academia struggles to evolve beyond traditional Western scientific frameworks to meaningfully engage with critical theory, Indigenous knowledge systems, and intersectional collaboration. Efforts to challenge these entrenched narratives are frequently dismissed as passion projects or reduced to mere ethical checkboxes, ensuring they remain peripheral to quantitative physical science rather than being integrated within it. Fundamentally, graduate programs are poorly designed for slow, trust-led work that community-engaged research demands. Timelines optimized for mass data extraction, rapid publication, and accelerated degree completion leave little space and energy to invest in relationship-building (both with human and more-than-human beings) and embrace evolving research outcomes that align with community priorities. Interdisciplinary coursework and methodological training outside of quantitative systems are often undervalued or outright discouraged by institutions to prioritize students gaining expertise in their niche, thereby leaving them lacking the transferable skills to collaborate across fields and the willingness to embrace alternative ways of creating and sharing knowledge beyond their direct academic audiences.

 An image of a glacial corset I composed to explore my embodied experience as an Indigenous researcher in Svalbard and an exhibit of colonial resistance at many levels. It explores the parallels between my own female body and glaciated landscapes, a common practice in Indigenous culture, despite women being historically excluded or undermined in glaciology fieldwork.

These systemic failures are not accidental; they reflect the same hierarchies of knowledge and power that shape what gets funded, who gets hired, and the expertise that gets acknowledged, ultimately dictating how we are taught to pursue research and inspire the next generation of scientists. When frameworks emerge that challenge these deeply entrenched systems, they may surface within social science discourse and yet rarely inform the physical sciences, where structural change is needed. Beginning a broader paradigm shift requires more than individual reflexivity, but a collective willingness to embrace a state of productive chaos, ultimately disrupting the dominant power dynamics enough that an emergent, relational framework can take

root and truly prosper.

Glaciology lags behind even other environmental fields in confronting these legacies. As a discipline founded on the conquest of remote landscapes, it carries a particularly ingrained masculinity, whiteness, and colonial privilege that shapes not only who engages with research but how glaciers themselves are even conceptualized. They are viewed as static, often neutral objects subject to our conquering, extraction, and manipulation rather than living, relational beings embedded in the histories and sovereignty of local communities and their more-than-human relations. These affective and social dimensions are complex: glaciers are simultaneously mobilized as powerful public symbols of the climate crisis, flattening the complex, place-based stories of glaciated landscapes into consumable metaphors that serve external agendas rather than the beings who have long lived in relation to ice. Navigating this landscape honestly and respectfully is a form of relational responsibility that requires intentional understanding, one that the field has yet to fully reckon with or expect from researchers.

Recrystalizing Approaches to Glaciology

Confronting these barriers does not call for a universal, stagnant solution or strict, reproducible order of operations, nor does it demand that every glaciologist put aside their projects to pursue community-participatory research. Relational glaciology is not a discrete methodology; it is an embodied practice that invites researchers to challenge the very nature of knowledge creation and to reshape our approach to research. It asks us to return to the curiosity that originally drew many of us to science, and to embrace learning, and ultimately being wrong as its own form of rigor.

It asks us who is producing knowledge, and who has been historically excluded from this process? What ways of knowing and doing are valued or supported in academic spaces? Where do we conduct and share research, and what responsibilities do we carry toward those lands and their relations? Why are we pursuing this work, and to whom are we accountable... institutions, communities, families, landscapes? When do we need to step back from our privilege, and when do we need to be open to change within the field, even when it unsettles the foundations we were trained on? How do we engage with the landscapes, communities, data, and audiences we encounter, and how can we understand and challenge the colonial dynamics normalized within academia? There is no single correct answer to any of these questions. What relational glaciology looks like for an ice sheet modeler in France will differ from that of a graduate student collecting ice cores in Antarctica and a community researcher conducting fieldwork with their own community in Alaska. This is not a flaw; it is the entire motivation. These questions act as a starting point, and sitting in their discomfort is itself a form of practice.

This transformation is not work that can or should rest solely on the shoulders of individuals from marginalized backgrounds whose lived experiences reflect these values. Colonial academic systems produce the conditions that make this work necessary, while directing the burden of leading these shifts toward those who are already navigating the greatest structural barriers. Fostering relational practices in glaciology is a collective responsibility and privilege, one that requires researchers with institutional power and credibility to actively create space, share resources, and take risks alongside those who have historically had to take them alone. Overcoming the unique barriers glaciologists face requires tangible, flexible, and realistic approaches that succeed across the diverse ways we engage with ice. The six principles introduced here are offered as a guiding framework, not a checklist, that still honors the freedom and privilege of knowledge creation while recentering research within the Earth and the relationality she sustains. Indigenous knowledge systems across the world, while each uniquely interpreted and embodied in their own cultural and geographic contexts, share common values rooted in place that offer a generative and expansive foundation for reimagining how cryosphere science can be conducted, shared, and who it ultimately serves. I am not asking you to abandon your expertise or passions; I ask you to share this responsibility, bringing humility and honor to this space.

A photo of my own joy on the Juneau Icefield in 2023, surrounded by a community of truly diverse scholars for the first time in my academic experience. I remember one of my peers compared crevasses to her own stretch marks, beginning the first moment I realized I had assimilated into the colonial frameworks of geophysics and nearly abandoned my own relationality to place. [PC: Yoland] 

The Snowflake Principles: Six Practices for Transformative Cryospheric Research

Just like a snowflake, these six principles are interconnected. No single value stands alone, instead forming a broader, more complete structure for transforming how we create, conduct, and share glacier research. They are each intended to be adaptive and interpreted, shaped by the unique demands of your discipline, your landscape, your responsibilities, and your positionality as a researcher. They do not require you to abandon your expertise, passions, or curiosity, but to honor them with humility and remain open to engaging with ways that different knowledge systems, places, and relations may strengthen and challenge what you know within

the field.

These principles draw from Indigenous scholarship, critical theory, and intersectional frameworks to offer entry points that are approachable across disciplines, lived experiences, and career positions, regardless of whether you work with ground penetrating radar or plume models, whether you are a settler or Métis, or whether you are an undergraduate student or tenured professor. They are not an end product or a final destination but practices guiding an ongoing commitment to being present, being accountable, and being willing to evolve. Start where you are and begin with what you do not know.

Relational Accountability

Relational accountability asks researchers to recognize their obligations beyond their institution or discipline, to themselves, their personal circles, local communities, physical environments, and global spaces. In practice, this might mean supporting data sovereignty agreements with communities, or communicating findings in formats and languages that are accessible and meaningful beyond academic audiences. It is a reminder that knowledge creation is never neutral, and that the reach of our research extends far beyond a journal publication or grant submission.

Kincentricity

A kincentric lens reorients humans as members of an interconnected web of relations, not separate from or superior to the natural world, but embedded within it. In glaciological research, this means recognizing glaciers as sentient beings and active knowledge keepers. This may look like co-designing research with communities to honor local knowledge and remaining responsive to what you observe and experience within the landscape, rather than extracting from it.

Emplaced Narratives & Local Context

Emplaced narratives ground research in the stories, histories, and lived experiences that people, land, and glaciers share across generations. This principle calls for engaging intentionally with the land and its relations, creating space for storytelling, and respecting narrative sovereignty. Researchers are encouraged to sit with a landscape long enough to hear what it is already telling us, in ways we may not traditionally understand.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity reframes knowledge exchange as a communal responsibility rather than a transactional one. It calls for fostering abundance through harmonious relations, collaboration, and the mutual exchange between scientific and local knowledge systems. This means resisting extractive tendencies and asking what this research offers in return to the community, to the land, to the broader web of relations.

Reflexivity & Embodiment

Reflexivity asks researchers to critically examine how their identity, privilege, and bodily presence shape their experiences and interpretations within the landscape. This principle encourages the practice of engaging in sensory experiences, emotions, and assumptions just as much as technical data collection. It invites researchers to be present with the glacier, noticing how they move with it and how they perceive its presence.

Challenge Frozen Legacies

This involves interrogating how gender, race, and colonial power structures continue to shape the discipline. Challenging frozen legacies is not about devaluing science; it is recrystalizing what is considered rigorous, meaningful, and successful. One provocation of this work is my glacial corset: an invitation to explore how femininity, culture, and relationship to place can be examined through metaphor and bodily familiarity.

A Call to Collective Accountability: Guided Reflection

● What could Relational Glaciology mean to you? To your research? To your communities?

● What are the biggest barriers you face in your current role?

○ What resources or spaces would help lower these barriers and make relational practices feel realistic in your work? How could you help lower these barriers for others?

● What do you have left to learn?

○ Who might challenge and reveal those opportunities for growth alongside you? How can you invite and incentivize resistant individuals in your network to engage?

○ How can we embrace these spaces, discussions, learning opportunities, and practices safely and respectfully, even when we are imperfect?

● How can we reduce the burden on individuals from marginalized backgrounds to lead this work?

○ What does sharing this risk and fostering a collective commitment look like to you?

● What embodied or reciprocal experiences does your research invite?

○ How do you engage relationally with a landscape, a dataset, or a model? What are the mutual relations you hold with your data, your models, your knowledge, your results?

○ How can you make your research process more intentional and less extractive?

● What histories, biases, and assumptions do you, as a researcher and participant in your research, bring to each project? How do they evolve?

● What brings you joy in this work? How can that joy be relational in itself?

I invite anyone interested in collaborating, sharing, and discussing this work to reach out. The success of this work relies on building a community that embraces this paradigm shift and is willing to actively engage in these practices within their research. I do not want this work to be solitary. I invite connection, as simple as answering the questions above, or sharing with your network of collaborators. Thank you for taking the time and energy to read this piece.

Author Bio:

I am a second-year master’s student in Geology at the University of Idaho. My thesis focuses on quantifying subglacial water flow using passive seismic observations from mountain glaciers across Alaska. I am committed to exploring how we can engage in Indigenous research methodologies and critical theory in glaciology, challenging colonial expectations within academic spaces to foster community resilience in the face of a disappearing cryosphere through geophysical methods.

You can find me on Instagram (@k_beausoleil5), my personal website at www.keeyabeausoleil.org, or reach out via email beau4371@vandals.uidaho.edu. A poster of this work presented at AGU 25 can be found here: https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.176771629.92197339/v1.

As a researcher and as a person, my relationship to the land is shaped by landscapes of many Indigenous peoples scarred by colonization. I would like to start by acknowledging the lands, knowledge, and peoples who have made my research possible. Based at the University of Idaho, I am privileged to gather, share knowledge, and build relations among the traditional homelands of the homelands of the Nez Perce, Palouse, and Coeur d’Alene tribes. And I would like to recognize that my relationship with the Earth is greatly rooted in the lands and guided by the skies of Treaty 6 Territory in Alberta, Canada. I encourage you to reflect on how you can carry Indigenous knowledge forward in your life and the individual privileges you have gained as a visitor on Indigenous lands.