Community-based adaptation (CBA) has emerged over the last decade as anapproach to empowering communities to plan for and cope with the impacts ofclimate change. While such approaches have been widely advocated, few havecritically examined the tensions and challenges that CBA brings. Responding tothis gap, this article critically examines the use of CBA approaches with Inuitcommunities in Canada. We suggest that CBA holds signifi cant promise to makeadaptation research more democratic and responsive to local needs, providing abasis for developing locally appropriate adaptations based on local/indigenousand Western knowledge. Yet, we argue that CBA is not a panacea, and its com-mon portrayal as such obscures its limitations, nuances, and challenges. Indeed,if uncritically adopted, CBA can potentially lead to maladaptation, may be inap-propriate in some instances, can legitimize outside intervention and control, andmay further marginalize communities. We identify responsibilities for research-ers engaging in CBA work to manage these challenges, emphasizing the central-ity of how knowledge is generated, the need for project flexibility and opennessto change, and the importance of ensuring partnerships between researchers andcommunities are transparent. Researchers also need to be realistic about whatCBA can achieve, and should not assume that research has a positive role to playin comm unity adaptatio n just because it utilizes participatory approaches
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