Chris Cuomo, Wendy Eisner and Kenneth Hinkel, "Environmental Change, Indigenous Knowledge, and Subsistence on Alaska's North Slope"
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Some Conclusions

As this is a preliminary discussion of a great deal of indigenous elder cultural environmental knowledge on the North Slope, there is much that remains under-examined here. Our main goals have been to present local testimony about the current realities in northern Alaska and to articulate our interdisciplinary methods. The environmental realities in far Northern regions are alarming, but regional politics and ecological urgencies create important and interesting opportunities for collaboration and the sharing of information across epistemological and cultural differences.

Iñupiaq perspectives and subsistence practices are powerful lenses through which to consider and evaluate the impacts of climate change, and to identify local strengths and resources for dealing with present and future challenges. In addition to vitally important information about environmental changes, our landscape-focused interviews with Iñupiaq elders include a wealth of information about contemporary land-based practices and cultural values. Along with the effects of anthropogenic global climate change (not unrelated to petroleum), the residents of the North Slope of Alaska are concerned about the immediate impacts of local petroleum development on their environment. Yet concerning environmental change, subsistence practices, and even gendered social roles, the Iñupiat appear to maintain a strong commitment to core values while enacting a high degree of flexibility and adaptability. Those are likely to be tremendous virtues as Arctic communities face the great unknowns of the future.

Our project aims to address common needs and a common sense of urgency, due to the rapidity of climate change in the North and the threat of cultural loss as highly respected elders grow older and face declining health. Sharing common concerns does not mean that everyone involved embraces identical environmental values, or that we see the North Slope environment or human community in the same way. Rather, we found that a shared sense of hoping for and working toward the well-being of the communities, animals, and ecosystems of the region has provided the necessary common ground for the knowledge-generating relationship we have worked to foster. While it would be a mistake to try to codify that sense or feeling into a method, we believe it would be difficult to complete mutually beneficial research connecting scientific and local knowledge if some sort of caring connection and/or high levels of respect for local autonomy were not somehow motivating the work. It is not always easy for researchers to know whether our contributions are beneficial to the communities with whom and for whom we work, but perhaps right now it is particularly important to try.

Endnotes

1. We would like to thank all of the residents of Atqasuk, Barrow, Wainwright, and Nuiqsut who have supported or participated in this research, especially Lollie Hopson, Arnold Brower, Sr., Kenneth Toovak, Ida Olemaun, Evelyn Donovan, Lewis Brower, Mary Sage, Ronald Brower, Sr., Larry Aiken, Thomas Brower, Jr., Virginia Brower, Mayor Elizabeth Hollingsworth of Atqasuk, and the staff of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium. We would also like to thank the graduate assistants and colleagues with whom we have worked on this project: Stephanie Doktor, Michael Wellman, Adrienne Gallo, James Bockheim, Ben Jones, Richard Beck, and John Hurd. Funding and additional support for this project has been provided by the National Science Foundation (grant BCS-0548846), The University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and the Willson Center for the Arts and Humanities. Chris Cuomo also thanks members of the Feminisms, Nationalisms, and Transnationalisms workshop sponsored by the Institute for Women's Studies at UGA for very helpful suggestions and feedback on an earlier draft. [Return to text]

2. In this paper, for the sake of simplicity we generally take science to be knowledge that has been established through rigorous testing according to accepted scientific methods, and always potentially subject to peer review. We therefore deploy a rhetorical distinction between experiential knowledge and scientific knowledge, primarily because they are validated through different norms and traditions. Nonetheless, there is no consensus in our research team on a clear definition of science. [Return to text]

3. Martin Sommerkorn, and Neil Hamilton, eds., "World Wildlife's Arctic Climate Impact Science Report," WWF International Arctic Programme, 2008:1. [Return to text]

4. Committee of Permanent Representatives to the United Nations Environment Programme Joint Subcommittees I and II, "Revised Draft Decision on Sustainable Development of the Arctic." 1 February 2008. United Nations Environment Programme. 4 August 2008. [Return to text]

5. We recognize that "local," "global," and other terms that attempt to identify interest groups with geospatial scale or location are rather deceptive, especially in the midst of aggressively global and high-tech capitalism. [Return to text]

6. See Doreen Walton, "Living with Arctic Climate Change." BBC News. 10 July 2006. Accessed 4 August 2008. And Jad Mouawad, "In Alaska's Far North, Two Cultures Collide." New York Times, 4 December 2007, B1. [Return to text]

7. See, for example, Ben Jones, Kenneth Hinkel, Christopher Arp, Wendy Eisner, "Modern Erosion Rates and Loss of Coastal Features and Sites, Beaufort Sea Coastline, Alaska," Arctic 61:4 (December 2008): forthcoming. [Return to text]

8. Y. L. Shur and M. T. Jorgenson, "Patterns of Permafrost Formation and Degradation in Relation to Climate and Ecosystems," Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 18:1 (2007): 7-19. [Return to text]

9. Wendy Eisner, Kenneth Hinkel, Ben Jones, Chris Cuomo, "Using Indigenous Knowledge to Assess Environmental Impacts of Overland Travel Routes, Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska," in D. Kane and Kenneth Hinkel, Eds. Ninth International Conference on Permafrost. Fairbanks, AL: Institute of Northern Engineering, University of Alaska, 2008, 415-420. [Return to text]

10. See F. Berkes, "Epilogue: Making Sense of Arctic Change?" in I. Krupnik and D. Jolly, eds., The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Fairbanks, AL: Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, 2005, 335-349, and Julie Cruikshank, Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005. [Return to text]

11. It may also be the case that, in the face of the "anti-science" position of the Bush administration, and that administration's failure to acknowledge the seriousness of climate change in a timely fashion, some scientists are unusually motivated to design projects that are in line with their own ethical priorities. [Return to text]

12. K. Brewster, "Native Contributions to Arctic Science at Barrow, Alaska," Arctic 50 (December 1997): 277-284; Henry P. Huntington, "Observations on the Utility of the Semi-directive Interview for Documenting Traditional Ecological Knowledge," Arctic 51:3 (September 1998): 237-242; G. Wenzel, "Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Inuit: Reflections on TEK Research and Ethics," Arctic 52 (1999): 113-124; H. Huntington, "Using Ecological Knowledge in Science; Methods and Applications," Ecological Applications 10 (2000): 1270-1274. For more information about projects linking indigenous knowledge and scientific inquiry, see "Indigenous Knowledge and Science." [Return to text]

13. "Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Scientific Report," Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Gilles Mingasson, "The End of Shishmaref," Photography, 2005; Steve Connor, ed., "Global Warming 'Past the Point of No Return'", The Independent, 16 September 2005; Mason Inman, "Global Warming Drying Up Ancient Arctic Ponds," National Geographic News, 2 July 2007. [Return to text]

14. M.B. Blackman, Sadie Brower Neakok: An Iñupiaq Woman, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989. [Return to text]

15. J. G. Bockheim, K.M. Hinkel, W. Eisner, and X. Y. Dai, "Carbon Pools and Accumulation Rates in an Age-Series of Soils in Drained Thaw-Lake Basins, Arctic Alaska," Soil Science Society of America Journal, 2004, 68:697Ð704; W. R. Eisner, J. G. Bockheim, K.M. Hinkel, T.A. Brown, F.E. Nelson, K.M. Peterson, B.M. Jones, "Paleoenvironmental Analyses of an Organic Deposit from an Erosional Landscape Remnant, Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska" Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2005, 217: 187-204; R.C. Frohn, W.R. Eisner, K.M. Hinkel, "Satellite Remote Sensing Classification of Thaw Lakes and Drained Thaw Lake Basins on the North Slope of Alaska," Remote Sensing of Environment, 2005, 97 (1), 116; K.M. Hinkel, R. Beck, W. Eisner, R. Frohn, F. Nelson, "Morphometric and Spatial Analysis of Thaw Lakes and Drained Thaw Lake Basins in the Western Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska," Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 2005, 16 (4), 327, 341; K. M. Hinkel, B. M. Jones, W.R. Eisner, C. J. Cuomo, R. Beck and R. Frohn, "Methods to Assess Natural and Anthropogenic Thaw Lake Drainage on the Western Arctic Coastal Plain of Northern Alaska," Journal of Geophysical Research—Earth Surface, 2007, Vol. 112; Eisner et al 2008. [Return to text]

16. The Atqasuk region is of particular geological interest because it includes an ancient backshore beach dune complex, which forms the boundary between the inner (older) and outer (younger) Arctic Coastal Plain. [Return to text]

17. See Discovering Reality, eds.Merrill B. Hintikka and Sandra Harding, New York: Springer, 1983; Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge, 1991; Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter, Feminist Epistemologies, New York, Routledge, 1993; Sandra G. Harding, ed., The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, New York: Routledge, 2004; Marianne Janack, "Standpoint Epistemology Without the 'Standpoint'?: An Examination of Epistemic Privilege and Epistemic Authority," Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 12:2 (Spring 2007): 125-139; Chris Cuomo, "Critiques of Science" in Women, Science, and Myth, Sue V. Rosser, Ed. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO Press, 2008, 365-371. [Return to text]

18. Nancy Hartsock, "The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism," in Discovering Reality, eds. Merrill B. Hintikka and Sandra Harding, New York: Springer, 1983: 283-310. [Return to text]

19. Sandra Harding, "Introduction: Eurocentric Scientific Illiteracy: A Challenge for the World Community," in The "Racial" Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future, Sandra Harding, ed., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993: 1-22. [Return to text]

20. North Slope Borough Department of Planning and Community Services. "About the NSB GIS." 4 August 2008. [Return to text]

21. See for example Charles Wohlforth, The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change. New York: North Point Press, 2005. [Return to text]

22. "Principles for the Conduct of Research in the Arctic." National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. National Science Foundation. 12 December 2006. 4 August 2008. [Return to text]

23. All participants and translators receive an honorarium. [Return to text]

24. For a more complete discussion, see Eisner et al, 2008. [Return to text]

25. See for example Jadah E. Folliot, Evaluation of Approaches to Depicting First Nations, Iñupiat and Iñuvialuit Environmental Information in GIS Format, MA thesis, Ryerson University and University of Toronto, 2005; Gernod Brodnig, and Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, "Bridging the Gap: The Role of Spatial Information Technologies in the Integration of Traditional Environmental Knowledge and Western Science," The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, 1 (2000): 1-16. [Return to text]

26. T. Harris and D. Weiner, "Empowerment, Marginalization and Community-integrated GIS," Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 25:2 (1998): 67-76, as quoted in Brodnig, "Bridging the Gap," p. 9. [Return to text]

27. Hinkel et al, 2007, and Eisner, et al, 2008. [Return to text]

28. Excerpts in this and the following sections are from interviews conducted in Barrow in April 2007. [Return to text]

29. See Charles Wohlforth, "As the Arctic Melts, An Ancient Culture Faces Ruins," National Wildlife 43:3 (Apr/May 2005). [Return to text]

30. See Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach, Eds. Circumpolar Lives and Livelihood: A Comparative Ethnoarchaeology of Gender and Subsistence, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006; Sophie Thériault, Ghislain Otis, Gérard Duhaime, and Christopher Furgal, "The Legal Protection Of Subsistence: A Prerequisite of Food Security for the Inuit of Alaska," Alaska Law Review 22:1 (2005), 35-87; and Thomas F. Thornton, "Alaska Native Corporations and Subsistence: Paradoxical Forces in the Making of Sustainable Communities," in Sustainability and Communities of Place, Carl A. Maida, Ed. New York: Berghahn Books, 2007. [Return to text]

31. Sophie Thériault, et al, "The Legal Protection Of Subsistence," 43. [Return to text]

32. Peter Bjerregaard, T. Kue Young, Eric Dewailly, and Sven O.E. Ebbesson,"Indigenous Health in the Arctic: An Overview of the Circumpolar Inuit Population," Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 32:5 (2004): 390-395. For an overview of scientific projections of possible impacts of climate change on human health, see Climate Change and Human Health: Risks and Responses, A. J. McMichael et al., Eds. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2003; David J. Tenenbaum, "Northern Overexposure," Environmental Health Perspectives, 106:2 (1998): A64-A69; and Paul Webster, "Health in the Arctic Circle," The Lancet 365:9461 (2005): 741-2. [Return to text]

33. See Patricia Longley Cochran and Alyson L. Geller, "The Melting Ice Cellar: What Native Traditional Knowledge is Teaching Us about Global Warming and Climate Change," American Journal of Public Health, 92:9 (September 2002): 1404-1409. [Return to text]

34. One version of the list of values (not ordered hierarchically) is: Sharing, Love and Respect for our Elders and One Another, Spirituality, Family and Kinship, Compassion, Humor, Cooperation, Knowledge of Language, Hunting Traditions, Humility, Respect for Nature, and Avoidance of Conflict. For more on Iñupiaq values and environmental ethics see Cuomo, "Eskimo Environmental Ethics," forthcoming. [Return to text]

35. Sophie Thériault, et al, "The Legal Protection Of Subsistence," 56, citing Robert J. Wolfe, Subsistence in Alaska: A Year 2000 Update 2, Alaska Division of Subsistence, 2000. [Return to text]

36. It should also be mentioned that most Iñupiat on the North Slope are Presbyterian, and their articulation of appropriate behavior is also typically couched in religious terms. [Return to text]

37. The historical anthropological and pseudo-anthropological literature on Arctic peoples abounds with tangential descriptions of the work of women. Although it was nearly impossible for authors describing day-to-day life in the Arctic to ignore the contributions of women, it was apparently equally difficult for white male authors of a certain era to acknowledge the full significance of women's work. A typical example is Diamond Jenness' Dawn in Arctic Alaska, an account of a year spent among Eskimos in northernmost Alaska in 1913. Jenness relates many memories of time spent in Eskimo households, and describes women who trap, hunt, travel the countryside, prepare all meals, and work tirelessly to craft and repair the boots and parkas of everyone in the household, including visitors. Yet when describing "the Eskimo woman" (already admitting no diversity in the category), rather than taking the sum of interesting evidence into account, Jenness, who did not speak Iñupiaq and describes no situation in which he had a real conversation with an Eskimo female, relies on his own cultural projections. Here is an example: "An Eskimo woman demands very little: her world is small and her mental horizon limited. Life seems full and satisfactory to her if she has someone who will supply her basic needs of food and shelter, someone for whom she must cook and sew and by whom, in due course, she can bear two or three children . . .. Her proper mission, she believes, is to establish and maintain a smoothly running household." (Diamond Jenness, Dawn in Arctic Alaska. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957.) A similar pattern of erasure and misrepresentation is evident in varying degrees in related literature, including James W. VanStone, Point Hope, an Eskimo Village in Transition, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962; Nicholas, J. Gubser, The Nunamiut Eskimos, Hunters of Caribou, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965; Nuligak, I, Nuligak, Maurice Metayer, Trans., Toronto: P. Martin Associates, 1966; Richard, K. Nelson, Hunters of the Northern Ice, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969; Richard K. Nelson, Shadow of the Hunter: Stories of Eskimo Life, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980; David Boeri, People of the Ice Whale: Eskimos, White Men, and The Whale, New York: Dutton, 1983; Thomas R. Berger, Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review, New York: Hill and Wang, 1985; John Murdoch, Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. A well-known and more contemporary first hand account of an Inupiaq woman's life is found in M.B. Blackman, Sadie Brower Neakok: An Iñupiaq Woman, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989. [Return to text]

38. Mark Nuttall, "Critical Reflections on Knowledge Gathering in the Arctic," in Louis-Jaques Dorais, Murielle Nagy and Ludger Muller-Wille, eds., Aboriginal Environmental Knowledge in the North, Quebec, GETIC: 21-35, quoted in Kerrie Ann Shannon, "Everyone Goes Fishing: Understanding Procurement for Men, Women and Children in an Arctic Community," Etudes/Inuit/Studies, 30:1 (2006): 10. [Return to text]

39. Barbara Bodenhorn, "I'm Not the Great Hunter, My Wife Is: Iñupait and Anthropological Models of Gender," Etudes/Inuit/Studies, 14:1-2 (1990): 64. [Return to text]

40. Bodenhorn, "I'm Not the Great Hunter, My Wife Is," 58, 61. [Return to text]

41. Janet Mancini Billson and Kyra Billson, Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit in a Century of Change, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, 43. [Return to text]

42. Bodenhorn, "I'm Not the Great Hunter, My Wife Is," 60. Flexibility of roles is evident in recent studies of Iñupiaq family structures. In a study of twenty-five "complex" (non-nuclear family) households on the North Slope, anthropologist Amy Craver found that, "Generally Iñupiaq sex roles and division of labor are not rigidly defined. If a husband is disabled, the sons or wife will become the family's hunter. An unmarried woman with children will often hunt to feed her family or rely on a brother or relative to provide for them." But importantly, men will also take on caretaking and food preparation work typically associated with women when needed. The families Craver studied include quite a few examples of young, middle-aged, and older men taking care of elders and children as their primary work. Amy Craver, "Household Adaptive Strategies Among the Iñupiat," in Complex Ethnic Households In America, Ian Craver, Ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, 107. Similar data concerning flexibility and egalitarian tendencies in contemporary gender roles (in spite of the presence of sexism) are presented in Julie Winkler Sprott, Raising Young Children in an Iñupiaq Village: The Family, Cultural, and Village Environment of Rearing, Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 2002. [Return to text]

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