It is often taken as a truism that research has a positive role to play in community adaptation, yet there have been very few attempts to investigate many of the claims made.4, 6, 28 There is a long history of interventions in Northern Canada, often advanced by outsiders in the name of ‘beneficial’ outcomes, which only serve to reflect nonindigenous worldviews and notions of progress and planning. These outside interventions have led to critiques about how researchers approach ‘community’ in the context of climate change and other issues.38, 85, 86, 87 In the workshop, this emerged as central theme, with participants reporting concern about how adaptation discourse has the potential to perpetuate legitimization of outside intervention/control, and entrench unequal power relations between Northerners and outside researchers. Many reported a general feeling of unease at being involved in research intervening in communities and cultures of which they are not a part, particularly about appropriating local initiatives as research projects and potentially compromising community leadership and agency.