With the deployment of high-speed Internet service in northern Canada, a videoconferencing project to support Inuit teacher training programs in two communities in Nunavik, Puvirnituq, and Ivujivik was undertaken from 2011 to 2015 (Pellerin, Maheux, da Silveira et al., 2016). Nunavik is a region of Québec that is characterized by a vast territory in which communities are isolated, mainly due to a lack of connecting roads. This project has brought a new dimension to the meetings of a co-management group, made up of members from the two communities and of the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT). In 1984, Puvirnituq and Ivujivik residents asked our university to help them develop and take charge of a community school project. Together, Inuit and non-Inuit partners formed a co-management group based on respect and recognition of each other's cultural identity (Paul, Crépeau, Legault & Maheux, 2013). This group, which is still active, is responsible for ensuring the definition, implementation, and evaluation of the school action plan, and thereby for maintaining the relevance of the training and research activities chosen in this intercultural educational context. From 1984 to 2011, apart from two annual face-to-face meetings, the monthly meetings were held exclusively by telephone. Today, members of the co-management group are using videoconferencing technology to hold their meetings remotely, thus adding a visual dimension to the existing audio dimension. After four years of experimentation in this development research (Loiselle & Harvey, 2007), interviews were conducted with members of the co-management group (n = 9) working in a bicultural and trilingual environment. This presentation describes the particular context. Following an explanation of the methodology, we present the preliminary results of the discourse analysis, which revealed the development of “presence” in the distance collaboration process (Jézégou, 2010), and we highlight the effects of this presence on the interactions between group members.

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