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ANCSA at 50 on the DANSRD Blog

On December 18, 2021 the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) turns 50. To mark the occasion, the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development will publish a series of blog posts from faculty and graduates discussing ANCSA at 50: The Next 50 Years. Posts will be related to the history of the law, the changes it has wrought, personal experiences with ANCSA, or ideas for the next 50 years. We will also be posting pieces from our past newsletters, links to the Department’s ANCSA at 40 video series, and information on historical sources. Please join us in looking at the Act that changed Alaska.

Our first repost comes from the DANRD 25th Anniversary Newsletter and describes the relationship between the rural development program and ANCSA.

“The History of Rural Development”

Reprinted from the Department of Alaska Native and Rural Development 25th Anniversary Newsletter, Fall 2009 1

THE “ROOTS” OF THE CURRENT B.A. DEGREE in Rural Development go back to the mid-1970s when Mike Gaffney and other faculty along with students and community members involved in UAF’S rural field-based Cross Cultural Education (XCED) teacher training program saw the need for some type of an additional degree option beyond classroom teaching that related to the development training requirements brought about by the passage of ANCSA (Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act). With the 1971 passage of ANCSA Alaska Native self-determination was dependent upon the success of the resulting profit corporations (based on a western financial market environment) and not-for-profit organizations that depended upon federal and state government funds (and westernized reporting requirements). The need for trained Alaska Native personnel was not a part of the settlement provisions and few Alaskan Natives were prepared for this level of professional management. The resulting Human Resource Development degree option within the B.ED degree program was an initial step to address these needs.

In the late 70s as the ANCSA situation continued to unfold and self-determination efforts began to accelerate, it increasingly became evident that the Human Resource Development orientation of the B.ED degree needed to be significantly modified so that individuals would have the knowledge and skills needed to be able to multi-task between “running the business” while maintaining the community’s cultural identity and control over these processes. The B.A. degree in Rural Development was designed with this end in mind.

The structure and content of the initial RD degree was shaped by desire to train human resource generalists that could address a variety of administrative duties and responsibilities based on familiarity with the general context of socio-economic development (RD core) and then approach specific issues from an inter-disciplinary specialty concentration or area of expertise (applied emphasis). Through internships, course projects, grant writing exercises and a required senior project, the curriculum included real-life, applied experiences in order to prepare the graduates for the immediacy of the development environment in rural Alaska. Pat Dubbs, the first department head for the Rural Development program, was one of several key faculty that designed and nurtured the creation of the B.A. degree at UAF. Some of the others with early long term involvement were Ray Barnhardt, Rick Caulfield, Lary Schafer, Nick Flanders, and Taylor Brelsford.

From its official inception in 1984, Rural Development attempted to offer its degree to both on-campus and off-campus students. It had a network of rural based faculty members who, along with Fairbanks faculty members, offered degree courses via distance delivery methods throughout much of rural Alaska.

Today’s Rural Development degree has stayed true to this foundation. Its focus on recruiting, retaining and graduating Alaska Native and rural students continues in the mission of the RD program. The major’s core courses offer the generalist orientation, the required Concentration Area incorporates an interdisciplinary skill area of expertise and the graduates have the experiences of a required internship [the internship course is still available, but no longer required] and senior project. Student advising remains a cornerstone of each faculty’s role and the department now offers a whole new level of growth for students who have achieved their bachelor degree by offering the distance delivered M.A. in Rural Development.

1 https://uaf.edu/dansrd/overview/newsletters/2009_25thAnniversaryIssue_DANRDnewsletter.pdf

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DANSRD Graduate Continues to Lead

Barbara ‘Wáahlaal Gíidaak Blake

DANSRD would like to congratulate former faculty member Barbara ‘Wáahlaal Gíidaak Blake on her successful bid for a seat on the Juneau Assembly. Barbara is a graduate of the RD MA (2013) and BA programs and taught for DANSRD 2013 through 2014. ‘Wáahlaal Gíidaak is of Haida, Tlingit and Ahtna Athabascan descent and belongs to the Káat nay-st/Yahkw ’Láanaas (Shark House/Middle Town People) Clan.  She is the daughter of Sandra Demmert (Yahkw Jáanaas) and Kenneth Johnson (Naltsiina), and the granddaughter of Frances Demmert Peele (Yahkw Jáanaas), Franklin Demmert, Sr. (Teeyeeneidi), Irene Johnson (Naltsiina)  Walter Johnson (Norwegian), and mother to two amazing kids.  She currently serves as the Director of the Alaska Native Policy Center with First Alaskans Institute, where she promotes the self-determination of Alaska Native peoples through strengthening opportunities for indigenous voices to be at the forefront of leading, solving, confronting, and advocating for Indigenous communities. She will be a strong voice for equity and justice for all on the Assembly.

We are very proud of her achievements and hope that other RD and ANS graduates will follow in her footsteps to provide strong leadership for Alaska.

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RD BA graduate Nicholes on how DANSRD prepared him for international graduate school success

At the end of Spring 2022, I will submit my graduate thesis on social movements and cultural trauma as part of the Human Security Master’s Program at Aarhus University in Denmark. Five years ago, I could not have imagined myself nearing the completion of a graduate degree or even the type of person applying to doctoral programs. Academia, in general, was outside anything I could really have imagined. All of this taken into consideration — I can only give gratitude for what feels like an endless number of people willing to put in the effort supporting me throughout my academic career. A significant amount of that effort rests with the excellent faculty and staff at the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development.

Nicholes (back row, second from the right) with DANSRD faculty, staff, and fellow graduates, May 2019.

I first began my studies in the Rural Development Bachelor of Arts program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2017, leaving my home in Seattle and heading north to Alaska. I was nervous and excited about my transition to Alaska as anyone will be when taking the leap to somewhere new. I should not have worried in the least however, as the support I received from my professors and staff was fantastic from day one. All my needs as I settled into my new home were met without issue and the university environment was undoubtedly one of the most welcoming I had ever experienced. Once my studies began, I found that the topics covered were comprehensive in scope and intensive in their depth. The Rural Development program covered topics ranging from law, public policy, project development, environmental crises, history, ethics, business planning, and human development theory.

Following my UAF graduation, I applied and was accepted into Aarhus University in 2020. One more move taking me further and farther than I had been on my own. Surprisingly, I found little to no issues adapting to postgraduate education. My Rural Development degree had prepared me. Frankly, I should have realized that fact from the first class I ever took at UAF, Rural Alaska Land Issues. I still remember the first day and walking into Professor Kathleen Meckel’s class — Not only one of the most welcoming professors I ever had the opportunity to meet, but also an excellent guide into what would be an entire semester covering Alaskan land laws and policy. There was never a separation between what I studied and how it impacted Alaska, which helped me develop a skill set used throughout my master’s program today — particularly in research.

Moesgaard Campus (MOCA) where the Anthropology, Human Security, Archaeology and Sustainable Heritage Management Programs are held at Aarhus University.

On the practical side, I also learned various skills essential to anyone’s academic career. I learned how to produce written work and deliverables at the postgraduate level. More than that, I was given a practical education on project design, presentation, grant writing, and research development that I had never learned outside of university. When diving into our final semester, I received in-depth support on developing a thesis and research methods while covering criticism and theoretical developments in research methodology.  At the end of the program, I felt more than capable of discussing theory with my professors, covering figures like Amartya Sen and Paulo Freire, depopulation theory, and many others. I also found myself throughout the program learning through discussions with my classmates and peers as the diverse cohort I studied with all had experiences reached outside the classroom. Even though my studies in the master’s program have shifted their focus outside of the Alaskan context, I still find my research revolving around many of the same topics I studied in the Rural Development program. Issues of inequality, ecological crises, food scarcity, public policy, and law are not only limited to Alaska. Additionally, the focus in Alaska didn’t restrict me in the least; Instead, it allowed me to delve deeper into the topics at hand around real issues felt in the region. Ultimately, as a master’s student, research and my thesis are the final goals; I would have been on a less sure path if not for the Rural Development program and everyone involved.

Rooftop view of Aarhus, Denmark.
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DANSRD Tribute to Senator Albert Kookesh by Jenny Bell Jones

DANSRD staff, students and faculty, were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Senator Albert Kookesh. We extend our condolences to his family and to the communities of Angoon, and Manley Hot Springs where his wife of 51 years, Sally Marie Woods is from.

Senator Kookesh was born in Juneau in 1948. Senator Kookesh was Eagle of the Teikweidí (Brown Bear) clan, Child of the L’eeneidí (Dog Salmon) clan. His Tlingit name was Kaasháan, and he also had the name Yikdahéen. He was a 1967 graduate of Mt. Edgecumbe High School, earned his undergraduate degree in 1972 from Alaska Methodist University (now Alaska Pacific University) and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Washington School of Law in 1977.

Senator Kookesh served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1997 to 2004 and the Alaska State Senate from 2004 to 2012. His life time of exemplary public service included over 40 years on the Sealaska Corporation Board of Directors, 16 years as co-chair on the Alaska Federation of Natives Board, leadership positions in the Alaska Native Brotherhood, First Alaskans Institute, and work in the Knowles and Walker administrations and much more.

Senator Kookesh provided valuable mentorship to a number of Rural Development students over the years including Barbara Blake, Veronica Slajer and Nancy Barnes. He was generous with his wisdom and once braved the difficulties of parking at the Brooks Building and navigation of snow and icy walkways to deliver a wonderful guest lecture on subsistence law to the ANS 425 Federal Indian Law class. His advice at the time, to keep a close eye on water law and water rights in Alaska is being followed to this day.

Senator Kookesh stayed close to his roots in Southeast and when the time came to defend subsistence fishing rights in court he stepped up to the plate and took his case all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court. In his own words from the Salmon and Society Meeting in 2016:

“I didn’t do it to break the law. I didn’t do it to offend anybody. I did it to challenge that premise, 15 fish per family per year…that is one and a half fish a month, or less…Let me see any of you try and live the life of a whole salmon season, a whole winter on 15 fish. Especially if you have a family of ten or five…I wanted to challenge that forever…The progress of an Alaska Native in Alaska can be measured by our success in the courts. Nobody ever gave us anything. We had to sue for it…I hope you can understand as to why I challenged it. I thought that wasn’t fair. I thought it was not right. I feel, being a senator and former representative of the house, that laws are going to continue to evolve in Alaska. Everything you all do, everything we all do collectively is going to help get us to a place where we want to be eventually, especially when it comes to our salmon. So, these kinds of cases aren’t mean cases, they are trying to develop the law to where it should be.”

Let us honor this warrior and his family by remembering his words and carrying on his work in law and policy!

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Senator John Sackett: Leader and Mentor by Emeritus Professor Jenny Bell Jones

DANSRD staff, students and faculty, were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Senator John Sackett. We extend our condolences to his family and Tribe.

Senator Sackett was born June 3, 1944 at spring camp, up the Huslia River, a tributary of the Koyukuk River. When he was six, he attended St. Mark’s mission in Nenana for a year after which a school was built and the Territory sent a teacher to Huslia. Later he went to Sheldon Jackson High School in Sitka and graduated in 1963. He studied at Ohio University for a year before returning to Alaska to attend UAF.

At 21, in 1966, he was the youngest person ever to be elected to the Alaska Legislature and he won his seat by two votes. He was involved with the early development of Fairbanks Native Association in 1965 through 1967. He also served as President of Tanana Chiefs Conference from 1966 to 1968 and as President of Doyon Limited from 1972 to 1976. He received an honorary doctorate of laws from UAF in 2013.

Senator Sackett filled many important leadership positions over his years of service to Alaska including two terms in the State House serving on the House Finance Committee and fourteen years in the Senate.

After two terms in the House, he took a break from politics and completed a degree in Business Administration (Accounting with a minor in Political Science) from UAF in 1972, after which he returned to the Alaska Senate where he served on the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Sackett was a strong voice for Alaska Native land claims and made sure that the State of Alaska paid its share into the Alaska Native Fund as required by ANCSA. He used his power as chairman and co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee to make sure that rural priorities were properly financed and services were provided.

In later years he was incredibly generous with his knowledge in participating in the DANSRD leadership seminars. He showed many of us an incredible example of how to successfully combine traditional and modern lifeways. That knowledge was foundational for many DANSRD graduates who benefited from his kindness in sharing what he knew, and he will be missed by us. We encourage you to take a little time to learn more about Senator Sackett by listening to his 1991 interviews with the late Dr. Bernice Joseph on the Fairbank Native Association Project Jukebox at https://jukebox.uaf.edu/fna/htm/sackettpg.htm

You can also read his own story, written in 2010 online at https://uaf.edu/dansrd/files/Sackett_NOVEMBER2010.pdf This story is an education in itself!

John Sackett with DANSRD faculty and students at the 2010 leadership seminar. Senator Sackett is in the center with the red pullover.

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DANSRD, Development, and Education: Professor Carroll visits Finland

Beautiful curtains of lights in downtown Helsinki.

We often forget just how unique the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development (DANSRD) is in the world of Indigenous higher education and how fortunate we are to have programs that emphasize Alaska Native and rural student needs and perspectives as learners, researchers, and development practitioners instead of objects of study or top down planning.   Last year I started looking closely at our graduates’ senior and master’s projects and theses to understand what areas DANSRD students are most interested in and why, and with the budget crisis this summer I began also gathering information about the impacts of DANSRD graduates in their communities. So, this fall when I saw the call for papers for the Northern Political Economy Symposium in Rovaniemi, Finland I decided to put some of the work I’d been doing together and submit an abstract.

The author and a friend siting at a restaurant table in front of a window looking out onto a community square in Helsinki.
Irja took this beautiful photo of Hanna and me at a local restaurant. One of my favorite things about being in Finland was that northern foods like reindeer, lingonberries (our lowbush cranberries) and tart northern blueberries were a part of everyday food even at restaurants.

I spent a week in Finland in mid-November, first in Helsinki and then on to Rovaniemi to present at the Northern Political Economy Symposium at the University of Lapland. In Helsinki Saami linguist Irja Seurujärvi-Kari, my excellent host, introduced me to her friends and colleagues, including Hanna Guttorm and Pirjo Virtanen, at the University of Helsinki Indigenous Studies program and we spent a lovely two days visiting and talking about Indigenous issues in Finland. I was able to speak to Professor Virtanen’s Introduction to Indigenous Research Methods class about my teaching and research at UAF and listen to some of their collaborative discussion presentations of different Indigenous research methods from around the world (if I can figure out a way to copy that assignment in a mixed face-to-face and distance class I will, so students be prepared!). I also attended their lecture series on “Sacred Spaces” – starting with presentations on sacred trees in the Amazon and in Estonia.

Sunset in Rovaniemi walking back to the hotel from the University of Lapland.

Then it was off to Rovaniemi for the Symposium. The Symposium theme asked, “What is left of development in the Arctic?’ and called for topics related to the potential (or lack of potential) for sustainable development in the Arctic. My paper, “Development Dilemmas: Rural Development Students Imagining a Sustainable Future in Alaska,”   looked at the projects and theses produced by University of Alaska Fairbanks Rural Development Master of Arts students as a reflection of changing attitudes towards development in rural Alaska. Our students’ work illustrates how the program has helped increase Alaska Native and rural peoples’ ability to participate in dialogues and negotiations about development in rural Alaska, brought Alaska Native perspectives into these development dialogues, and helped students generate self-defined visions of what development means. I think more than anything, attendees at the Symposium were impressed to hear about educational programs focused on Indigenous needs and perspectives and whose graduates (for the MA) are 65% Alaska Native.

The trip reminded me of how special our programs are, but it also reminded me that DANSRD faculty and students have not been very active in sharing and communicating our scholarship with people outside of Alaska and our immediate community and we do not pay enough attention to some of the ideas being developed in other parts of the world. Here are just a few of the interesting people, publications, and ideas from my trip.

  • Irja Seurujärvi-Kari, Pirjo Virtanen, Hanna Guttorm, and their colleagues have a new book on Indigenous research methodologies coming out next year, but in the meantime their Encyclopaedia of Saami Culture is a great resource for learning about Saami people.
  • Symposium keynote speaker Reetta Toivanen of the University of Helsinki discussed the concept of “Arcticism’ (modeled after Said’s “Orientalism’ – the way in which various discourses inform Western perceptions of the Arctic) in her presentation entitled “Whose development are we talking about? European fantasies on the Arctic.’ The term was originally coined in Arctic Discourses (2010), available at Rasmussen Library.

Frontier aesthetics: *Natural sublime to technological sublime. *God-like perspectives, bird-eye camera angles, long shots. *Straight lines, intense colors, high contrast. *Backgrounding of nature, diminution of human agency. *"Arctic: colors - visual freezing of the frontier. Shows colors moving from grays to browns to blues.
“Frontier aesthetics.” Slide from Liubov Timonina’s presentation, November 14, 2019.

  • As many of my students know, I love visual analysis and am still waiting/hoping for a student to do a visual analysis project. The Arctic Institute’s Liubov Timonina’s “Imaging and narrating development in the Arctic: Visual storytelling in times of Capitalocene’ looked at the way images shape conceptions and marketing of oil and gas development in the Yamal Peninsula. Google “Yamal’ and see if you can see the “frontier aesthetic’ she describes. How do these images compare to the images you get when you search for “Prudhoe Bay’?
  • Gerard Duhaime of Université Laval looked at how public policies reproduce or amplify inequalities in his presentation “Market inequalities and the reproduction of unsustainability in Nunavik.’ It made me think about the ways our laws around subsistence also reproduce unsustainability in rural communities. I’m also going to check out Arctic Food Security (2008), edited by Duhaime and Nick Bernard, also available at the Rasmussen Library.
  • We often talk about Canada in my classes on the circumpolar north, but it can be hard to grasp the variability in the Indigenous settlements across the country and how they have responded to colonialism. Philippe Boucher of Concordia University focused on understanding Inuit voices and leadership in “Sustainable development through the Inuit cooperative movement.’
  • In his presentation “’North Plan’ — What’s left for Northern Indigenous communities? Can the North bring its riches back?’ Mathieu Boivin, University of Montreal, looked at how Quebec’s “Plan Nord’ prioritized non-Indigenous peoples in planning and development and its impacts on Indigenous peoples. I enjoyed speaking to Philippe and Mathieu about the Indigenous response to colonialism and Indigenous educational opportunities in Canada.
  • Susanna Pirnes, University of Lapland, presented on “History as a resource in Russian Arctic politics,’ looking at the use of historical imagery to establish Arctic identity. The presentation is from her chapter in Resources, Social, and Cultural Sustainability in the North (2019). The book was edited by Symposium organizer Monica Tennberg, Hanna Lempenin, and Susanna Pirnes, all of the University of Lapland and includes chapters from several presenters at the Symposium.
  • I had a great time talking to Frank Sejersen, of the University of Copenhagen about development and Indigenous approaches and perspectives. His article “Brokers of hope: Extractive industries and the dynamics of future-making in post-colonial Greenland‘ (2019) looks at how mineral extraction relates to ideas of national independence and is available online to UAF students if you sign in through the Rasmussen Library.
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Rural Development = Boots on the Ground: A guest post by Emeritus Professor Jenny Bell Jones

As I observe all the problems surrounding State governance and the budget, it has become clear to me that this is absolutely the time to emphasize the development potentials of the Rural Development (RD) Program. The State and its leadership need help and the RD program and its students are uniquely positioned to provide some of that assistance.

While there is no doubt that the Governor’s cuts to the budget are draconian and unworkable, this does not remove the reality that the State is in financial trouble. The time has come when everyone will have to pull together to address the budget shortfalls. Alaskans will have to accept that taxation is a part of modern life. We will have to reduce dependency on transfer payments and find ways to increase community and individual self-sufficiency. And, most of all, we must diversify our economy while at the same time retaining control over it.

Economy is crucial, and development strengthens local economies if it is done right. We can have positive development, but only if we get behind it and make it work. If we sit and wait for “development’ in the form of large private resource extraction projects, then we can expect to be harmed, but it does not have to be that way. Consider this: those mega-scale development projects that so many people do not like, gain traction in small communities because they promise jobs. But what if people in those communities already had jobs and decent incomes because other more modest development projects were already in place? Would there still be support for the mega-projects?

Nowhere is the need for a stronger and more diverse economy obvious than in Alaska’s Native villages. In these tribal communities, unemployment is the highest in the state, with numbers as high as 24% in the Kusilvak census area in 2017.[1] Not only are unemployment and “under-employment’ unacceptably high, but in addition a disproportionately high number of jobs are in “government.’[2] There is nothing inherently wrong with a government job but the problem here is that very few of Alaska’s tribal governments are self-supporting. They have no land bases to develop, no revenue sources from taxes and licensing, and almost all of their funding comes from the federal or state governments. If too large a proportion of the community is employed by a government that depends on another government for its revenue, that employment is not very stable. We must come up with ways to make village economies more diverse and self-sustaining.

Diversification of the Alaskan economy provides all kinds of avenues for Rural Development students, and the program should be a natural home for rural residents who care about the long term future of their communities. Now is the time to pursue partnership with entities outside of the university like tribes, ANCSA Corporations (ANCs) and private entrepreneurs that can fund student projects and research, and help students get involved in work that will produce meaningful sustainable economic development in their communities. Now is the time to encourage student interest in the economic and financial aspects of development, and explore ways to have development that is both a good cultural fit and something that produces positive change. If we miss this opportunity we will be selling both the students and the communities that we serve short.

All manner of development challenges and projects exist out there, both those we want to promote and those we want to prevent. Let’s focus on those we want to promote first because if we do this, we may find that doing so takes care of the prevention piece for us. How can we think outside the box and come up with ways to increase village sustainability. How can we grow local economies and prevent disasters like communities running out of water. How can we work with migration and make it work as a positive rather than a negative. How do we use local resources in a truly sustainable manner without depletion and cultural offence?

We cannot expect the State, under the current administration to do any of this for us. Likewise, the current federal administration is not one that understands phrases like “local control’ “sustainable uses’ or “culturally appropriate’ very well at all. What we can expect from them are developments we do not like if we sit back and do nothing. If we allow those schooled in traditional western business practices to take the lead, then we should expect to see a continuation of the colonial extraction-based model that has brought us to where we are today. Only when we begin to actively implement changes in how business is done, will we start to see long-term local improvements.

Development is going to come to rural Alaska regardless of whether people want it. That is simply a part of ongoing human change. There are plenty of aspects of development that improve the quality of life for residents, like newly paved roads in Elim[3] or battery storage projects in Kwethluk and Kongiganak.[4] Development has many faces and variations, and many benefits if it is done with the involvement of local communities. But that involvement is critical: if we are not involved we will not get what we want.

Rural Development graduates can put “boots on the ground’ in Alaska Native and rural communities to help guide developments and make sure they are place based and appropriately sized for each location. They can and must plan for the future growth of their communities and implement projects that will contribute to economic stability and independence from state and federal funding. They can build the bridges that are needed between tribes and ANCSA Corporations (ANCs), and they can develop relationships with private entrepreneurs who are willing and able to contribute positive investment in their communities. These graduates are vitally important to the future of Alaska Native and rural communities!

[1] https://labor.alaska.gov/trends/sep17.pdf

[2] https://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/alari/details.cfm?yr=2016&dst=01&dst=03&dst=04&dst=06&dst=07&r=3&b=29&p=20

[3] https://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2019/08/21/elim-residents-ride-on-new-roads-kawerak-says-theyll-improve-quality-of-life/

[4] https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/09/04/kwethluk-gets-new-battery-storage-project/

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DANSRD Fall Update: Planning for our future

The Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development met August 14 through 16 to discuss and plan for the upcoming academic year and beyond. We know that the budget issues this summer have caused a lot of uncertainty for students, faculty, and staff, but we want to assure you all that the Alaska Native Studies BA, Rural Development BA, and Rural Development MA remain fully available to students.

Here are some of the highlights and important information for students.

  • There will be budget cuts, but they will have limited impact on DANSRD program or course offerings at this time and DANSRD is offering a full slate of courses this fall. We expect to continue to offer full schedules in spring and into the future.
  • We are putting our community development toolbox and skills to good use with internal department strategic planning to strengthen our position within the university system so that we will continue to offer strong programs to students across the state. We don’t just teach it, we use it!
  • We met with fellow Indigenous focused programs Indigenous Studies and Tribal Management to find ways to strengthen our programs and course offerings and make the linkages and course progressions between our programs more seamless and clearer for all of our students.

We have seen some speculation that Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development will be “dissolved’ under the “New UA’ proposal. “Although we also have questioned why the New UA planning process does not have a formal place to consider Indigenous programs, we have heard nothing that indicates that our programs will be dissolved. A statewide Alaska Native Workgroup has met to synergize and plan around our shared goals, Alaska Native serving mission, and programs.

We must all remain engaged and vigilant. Please register for the courses you need this fall AND keep advocating for our programs and all Indigenous focused programs and services across UA.

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Alaska in the Upside Down Expanded Version

This is an expanded version of the community perspective I wrote that was published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on July 21, 2019 in response to the budget crisis and cuts to the University of Alaska. I thought it was worth putting a version on the blog that provided a bit more context and extended quotes from Frederick Jackson Turner on the importance of State Universities.   Jennie

Alaska in the Upside Down, or Stranger Things in Alaska

In the spring of 1989, I was a junior at Harvard College looking for a senior thesis topic when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, spilling approximately 11 million US gallons* of oil into Prince William Sound. Topic acquired, I returned home over the summer to travel through Alaska interviewing Alaskans from all walks of life: miners, teachers, fishermen, biologists, sales associates, homemakers, and politicians, including longtime Alaska State Senator Jack Coghill, later Lieutenant Governor (1990-94), and Governor Wally Hickel (1966-69 and 1990-94). All in all, I interviewed 47, mostly non-Native, Alaskans. Collectively they had lived an average of 31 years in the state, ranging from one year to seventy-five years. Twenty-three percent were born in Alaska.

I asked them what made a person an Alaskan? What kind of development was appropriate for Alaska? What was the role of government? How should we protect the environment? Had the Exxon Valdez oil spill changed their views? Throughout these interviews Alaskans used the language of the “frontier’ — what it means, how it should or should not change — to frame, explain, justify, and sometimes paper over their conflicting feelings about independence and governance, development and environmental protections.

These Alaskan’s perspectives mirrored those put forth in historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis, first published in 1883. Turner argued that the unique characteristics of American democracy were developed through the frontier experience. Individuality, independence, egalitarianism, faith in the common man [Turner excluded women and minorities from his analysis], all were forged through the pioneer experience. While there is much to dislike about Turner’s Thesis, particularly his views toward Native Americans and his celebration of unbridled opportunism and exploitation,** his ideas also express some of the best of the frontier spirit that has flourished in Alaska.

Listening to the current budget conversation in the State, I am reminded of Turner and of the conversations I had with my fellow Alaskans in 1989. I hadn’t realized just how much of those frontier ideals are missing from the current discourse. For sure, some threads of the conversation have remained the same. Many Alaskans retain the distrust of government and over-regulation of industry expressed by my interviewees. On the other hand, some foundational values expressed then seem to have all but disappeared, particularly when it comes to ideas about Alaskan self-reliance, hard-work, and neighborliness. No topic illustrates that change more clearly than how some Alaskans now view the PFD.

Alaskans in 1989 weren’t complaining about the “free money,’ but they weren’t about to depend on it either. As one person told me, “We’ll take it while it’s here, but we don’t rely on it.’ Now, as some Alaskans argue that the PFD has become sacrosanct, it feels like the key Alaskan values I was raised with have been turned on their head. The PFD has gone from a tool to an entitlement and we have become more like “food stamp pioneers,’ the term one of my interviewees gave to people who wanted to have the Alaskan experience without the actual work. So, now we have PFD pioneers who believe it is more important than education, medical care, or public safety; more important than taking care of each other. Alaska is in the Upside Down and the PFD is our Demogorgon.

Turner didn’t just look at how the frontier shaped the American democratic character, he also looked at how we could retain it even in the absence of the seemingly endless and free resources of the frontier. His answer to that was the State University. In his essay “Pioneer Ideals and the State University’ Turner argues that State Universities are a critical tool for advancing and preserving American democracy and supporting sound governance and development of resources. State Universities unite “vocational and college work in the same institution’ and train people in “service to democracy rather than of individual advancement alone.’

His arguments rest on two basic premises; first, that education is necessary for sustainable development and growth in modern societies, and second, that education must be provided to all people of talent and interest, not just the wealthy and powerful. Turner’s essay is filled with the language of optimism and hope, and no paraphrase can do them justice so here are a few excerpts.

“In the transitional condition of American democracy which I have tried to indicate, the mission of the university is most important. The times call for educated leaders. General experience and rule-of-thumb information are inadequate for the solution of the problems of a democracy which no longer owns the safety fund of an unlimited quantity of untouched resources. Scientific farming must increase the yield of the field, scientific forestry must economize the woodlands, scientific experiment and construction by chemist, physicist, biologist and engineer must be applied to all of nature’s forces in our complex modern society. The test tube and the microscope are needed rather than ax and rifle in this new ideal of conquest. The very discoveries of science in such fields as public health and manufacturing processes have made it necessary to depend upon the expert, and if the ranks of experts are to be recruited broadly from the democratic masses as well as from those of larger means, the State Universities must furnish at least as liberal opportunities for research and training as the universities based on private endowments furnish. It needs no argument to show that it is not to the advantage of democracy to give over the training of the expert exclusively to privately endowed institutions.’

To do this work, he argues, universities must act as pioneers, free to investigate and follow new ideas.

“That they may perform their work they must be left free, as the pioneer was free, to explore new regions and to report what they find; for like the pioneers they have the ideal of investigation, they seek new horizons. They are not tied to past knowledge; they recognize the fact that the universe still abounds in mystery, that science and society have not crystallized, but are still growing and need their pioneer trail-makers. New and beneficent discoveries in nature, new and beneficial discoveries in the processes and directions of the growth of society, substitutes for the vanishing material basis of pioneer democracy may be expected if the university pioneers are left free to seek the trail.’

Cutting the University of Alaska leaves the State without this important driver of innovation and development. It abandons the citizens of Alaska, taking away their opportunity for education and leaving them at the mercy of outside experts, politicians, and economic interests. It is the opposite of the ideals and values that Alaskans have worked towards for over 50 years. We must not give up on our university, our young people, or our right and ability to chart our own course. I leave you with Turner’s final words on the subject:

“The pioneer’s clearing must be broadened into a domain where all that is worthy of human endeavor may find fertile soil on which to grow; and America must exact of the constructive business geniuses who owe their rise to the freedom of pioneer democracy supreme allegiance and devotion to the commonweal. In fostering such an outcome and in tempering the asperities of the conflicts that must precede its fulfillment, the nation has no more promising agency than the State Universities, no more hopeful product than their graduates.’

If you want to read more from Turner his full collection of Essays, “The Frontier in American History,’ is available online as a Project Gutenberg eBook.

*My original community perspective said 10.1 “billion barrels” – quite a typo! The 10.1 number was the estimate from 1990 when I completed my senior thesis. Estimates today are around 11 million US gallons.

**Some people may wonder about using Turner given some of the problematic aspects of his theory. I’ll write about that in a later post.

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Is your research fieldwork or homework? Kamala Visweswaran’s ideas about decolonization, anthropology, and ethnography

Theoretical Musings is an occasional series where I explore some of the significant theoretical foundations and turning points in my academic journey. See the first installment here.

When I ask students to identify their theoretical framework(s) or paradigm(s), they often become what I call intellectually frozen. For many students, theories seem too broad, too abstract, or too academic to be useful and their brains (and typing fingers) become paralyzed. One common misconception they have about theory is that they have to pick just one and follow it. While it is true that some academics and policy makers pick a single theoretical approach and stick with it, most of us are theoretically pluralistic, finding nuggets of insight in many different places. This is particularly important for students who come from different cultural backgrounds with their own cultural paradigms about knowledge and learning. For me, one of those theoretical nuggets was Kamala Visweswaran’s ideas about fieldwork and homework.[i]

When I began my Ph.D. program in anthropology in 1995, I was preparing to join through marriage my intended research community. Within the common paradigms of Western scientific inquiry, this created an obvious and immediate conflict: I had become too close to the community and culture of my study. I was no longer “in the field,’ but “at home.”

Historically, in anthropology “the field’ has been both a location of transformation and a location of separation, a rite of passage through which the student passes, a vessel of concepts, theories, and methods waiting to be filled with cultural grist for the anthropological mill. For the budding anthropological scholar, the field is the location of their transformation from student to practitioner, a transformation marked preferably by physical and mental challenge, with a bit of hazing thrown in.   The field is also a location of knowledge transformation, where so-labeled traditional and cultural knowledge collected by the researcher begins that mystic transformation into academic knowledge in a dissertation or publication. These transformations depend upon and reinforce the field as a location of separation, a place that enhances boundaries between the anthropological self and exotic other, between culture A and culture B, between “cultural” knowledge and “acultural“[ii] knowledge. By becoming a part of my intended field I had at least partially collapsed those boundaries and took my transformation in a potentially unscholarly direction.

I needed to explore my new positionality and place it in context and so began to look at approaches to ethnography and oral history that explored the relationships between researcher and researched in ways that went beyond the traditional Western dichotomy. Fortunately, many feminist and postcolonial anthropologists were already working with and writing about this issue. One of those was Kamala Visweswaran, a cultural anthropologist by training who is now a professor in the Ethnic Studies department at UC San Diego.

Fictions of Feminist Ethnography was Visweswaran’s first book, a collection of essays exploring feminist theory and practice in ethnography. While her discussion of the potential nature and textual forms of feminist ethnography was useful, it was her theorizing about the nature of fieldwork and homework that gave me a piece of theoretical foundation that I use to this day: Viswesaran linked the decolonization of anthropology with the notion of homework,  an “anthropology in reverse’ that speaks “from the place one is located’ (1994, 104).

I have argued for the convergence of two distinct epistemological shifts, one where gender ceases to hold the center of feminist theory, and one where the field fails to hold the center of anthropology.   One shift signals the failure of feminist thinking, and the other, the failure of ethnography.   Both shifts, I believe, mark decolonization as an active, ongoing process — incomplete, and certainly not one to be memorialized as past historical moment…if I have strategically theorized home in order to unearth the hegemonic “field’ of feminist anthropology, I also recognize that field and home are dependent, not mutually exclusive, terms, and that the lines between fieldwork and homework are not always distinct (1994, 113).

As this quote illustrates, her arguments were highly theoretical – broad, somewhat abstract, and academic — but her core notion, that research from a place of belonging (or partial belonging) was not just a legitimate, but a necessary anthropological endeavor, helped me understand my place and has continued to help me as I work with students who are doing their own homework of some kind.

So, for your research or project, in what ways are you doing homework? In what ways are you doing fieldwork? Does it help you to think about your research as homework instead of fieldwork? Do you think it would help you explain your work to others? If so, you have a little piece of theory that supports your approach to your own work and places you within an academic tradition. Congratulations!

Next up in Theoretical Musings:

This particular theoretical idea deals with positionality — the ways in which our culture, gender, class, ethnicity, and locations in time and place influence how we understand the world. It falls under epistemology, the branch of philosophy that is concerned with theories of knowledge. In terms of research paradigms, epistemology looks at the nature of the relationship between the knower and what can be known. Establishing an understanding of your relationship to your research is important, but it (usually) will not be the only theoretical perspective you need for your work. For example, you might need to decide whether to focus on “needs’ or “assets’ for a community development project and find a framework that explains and organizes your approach. For our next installment I will look at two different types of assets based theoretical approaches, Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and Cordelia Flora and Jan Flora’s Community Capitals Framework.

[i] Twenty-four years later her ideas still resonate within feminist anthropology circles, as this 2018 post in Anthropology News attests.

[ii] As Western academic knowledge is often presumed to be.

Fictions of Feminist Ethnography can be read online by UAF students through the Rasmussen Library website.

Visweswaran, Kamala. 1994. Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.