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Is Our Money Misbehaving? Part 1: Money and Traditional Values – Guest Post by Emeritus Professor Jenny Bell Jones

If you are an Alaska resident you probably just got your Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD). The State of Alaska paid out $1600 to every qualified Alaskan during October. The money is “free money’, the only thing we have to do to get it is fill out a short form, and we can spend it any way we like. It is free for the State too … all they have to do is go out to the money tree and pluck the amount they need to pay for the PFDs … Well, maybe not.

OK, now I got your attention so let’s talk about money a little more carefully. How well is that money behaving? What part does it really play in our lives and who is in control? Do we control money or does it control us? Where does the money come from and how does it affect our ability to adhere to Native values that we have been taught have their roots in “cashless’ societies … values that teach us to share with and care for others?

Whose values you ask? Good question, because there is no one universal set of Native values and by no stretch of the imagination do all Native people adhere to the same values today. For the purpose of this article I used the ones I myself live by which have their closest cousins in the Athabascan Values agreed upon at the 1985 Denakkanaaga Elders Conference (https://www.ankn.uaf.edu/ancr/values/athabascan.html). You can find other sets of values for different Alaska Native groups and all are pretty similar in terms of reminding us to share, work hard, show responsibility to our communities, and respect and care for elders and children. All of them stress respect for the land and for Native traditions and urge us to be honest in all that we do. None of them talk directly about money so now we will take a look at where money fits into those value systems.

Money has been around in one form or another for a very long time although it has been utilized differently by various groups. Before money in the form of cash came along, societies had different items of value that they used in the process of trade. While cash as we know it now (coins, paper money etc.) may be relatively new in some Indigenous communities, trade has been around for a long time. Can we say that we are practicing Native traditions when we use money? Perhaps not, but how we use it certainly can (and should) connect back to those traditions and values. The money itself is nothing more than a medium of exchange, a tool that we can use wisely or unwisely as we choose. Wise use of resources seems to be a pretty universal Native value.

The question we might ask ourselves is this: “How do we take a tool which has been used by some for a long time to support systems which perpetuate inequality and unfairness, and instead use that same tool within our own systems to do the opposite; insure equality and fair treatment for everyone?’

Indigenous Peoples did not participate haphazardly in trade. They placed a value on different items and expected certain amounts of other items in return when they traded with each other or with neighboring tribes. When they began trading with colonists and long distance partners the trading networks expanded and over time began to include cash in some of the transactions. The more expansive the trade network became, the more likely you were to see money involved, until we reached the point we are at today where the large majority of business transactions in North America involve some exchange of cash. Responsible involvement in the trade network certainly met the Athabascan values of self-sufficiency, hard work, and care and provision for family and can continue to do so today especially if we respect the knowledge and wisdom that can be gained from life experiences. The initial incorporation of money into the traditional systems did not result in the widespread abandonment of values.

But itself money is not a bad thing and it allows a much wider range of goods and services to change hands than could ever take place otherwise. It would be very difficult for instance to exchange bead work for a plane ticket to Anchorage or to try to pay the utility bill with a bag of dry meat. Both of those items are very valuable in some communities but that value cannot be readily changed into plane maintenance or diesel fuel. When used this way to pay for things we need, money can provide support for the practice of all the values we hold dear. When new tools arrived in Native communities, people decided if they worked well or not. They kept on using those which did and discarded those which did not. Money is a tool and a good one if it is used wisely. We do not have to abandon our values to use this tool but we do need to control its behavior.

Problems arise when we stop controlling the behavior of our money and it starts to take on a life of its own. When we start valuing money for its own sake and trying to accumulate far more than we actually need, it becomes much harder to align our use of money with our Native values. We are surrounded by a wider system that helps us to allow our money to misbehave. That system encourages us to spend more than we have, and to buy all manner of things we do not really need. We are also encouraged to support development that damages our lands and waters so that we can have more money to spend. This system does not encourage sharing with others. Instead, it rewards those who accumulate lots and do not share. When acquiring more money than we need becomes a goal, even if it comes at the expense of our lands, communities, and future generations, we have gone beyond the healthy incorporation of money, and added something new to the traditional system by sanctioning uncontrolled acquisition.

When we allow organizations we are involved with to focus on wealth accumulation at the expense of everything else, we find ourselves even further removed from those traditional value systems. Now we are turning control of the money over to someone else and washing our hands of the responsibility for how it behaves. We are hoping that somehow those organizations will be held accountable, and contribute in some way to our future well-being, but we are not doing our part to control the behavior of the money very well.

Using money while staying true to our values requires that we understand the financial system, and be prepared to take control and say no to things that do not align with those values. It means understanding investing and about things like taxes and why we pay them. As communities grew in permanent locations the need for communal-use facilities increased. Schools, roads, hospitals, tribal halls, libraries, recreational facilities … all of these require much more money than a few individuals could provide so we use taxes to pay for them. None of us expect to have to shoulder the entire cost of fixing the school roof but most of us love children and are willing to pay a little towards it. We love and respect elders and do not mind contributing to programs that help them. We do that when we pay our taxes.

Public education is especially important. Private industry requires employees to have all sorts of skills but, in general, those industries expect the employees to have acquired those skills elsewhere. Imagine how expensive it would be for today’s businesses and corporations if they had to teach prospective employees to read and write! On a more personal level, think about how difficult things would be if every family had to teach all the basics to their own children with no support from the state. At least one parent would need to stay home and be a full-time teacher, assuming they had the skills to do this. The world we live in now cannot operate without public education so it makes sense that we all contribute to cover the cost and insure that we can continue to participate in the economy.

When businesses or individuals say they want to “save money on taxes’ this really means they want to spend the money on something else for their own good rather than contributing that money to the public good. It may be legal to do so but is it really fair and honest … does tax avoidance fit well with traditional values of sharing and caring about communities? What would have happened if people in subsistence-based communities had withheld labor and resources but then expected an equal share of the annual catch of salmon? When we view taxes as some kind of unfair burden rather than our way to contribute to everyone’s well-being, and find ways to avoid paying them, there will be less money for the public services we all need and use.

If too many tax payers find ways to avoid paying their share, many of the things we use will be unavailable. Almost all of the federal funding for tribal programs is derived from taxes so tribal citizens will suffer. If schools are underfunded children suffer. If we lack proper law enforcement everyone in the community suffers. If Medicare and Social Security are raided to make up for the shortfall, elders suffer. Tax cuts may sound good on paper but they are not free; we will absolutely have to pay for them. Money goes around in a circle and when we disrupt part of that circle the progress stops.

In an article on shopping locally, Jeremiah Moss suggests that we need to act like citizens rather than consumers when it comes to controlling the behavior of our money and I agree.[1] Instead of blindly following along and placing the acquisition of more money in front of everything else, we must look at the big picture. Our elders knew that if we trapped too many beaver or caught too many fish there would not be enough in the following years. If we demand more free money in the form of larger PFDs there will less to go around in the future. If wealthy people and large businesses avoid paying taxes there will be fewer services for all of us and eventually even the tax-avoiders will suffer.

At some point we all have to stop taking out and put something back in the same way as those elders preserved the animal populations by “resting’ different areas from hunting over time. Those who are taking out the most need to set an example by limiting their take and making sure their use of money is not hurting others. When we all start being more conscious about how we control our money we will have taken a step in the right direction to properly incorporate its use into our Native value systems.

[1] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/16/17980424/shop-local-jeremiah-moss?fbclid=IwAR12FCHVDh_qQYrgS3ICwqPyPHrb_KvlNDk5mAgCfD3N71Dh6C4tDmOjtzo

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What Are ANCSA Settlement Trusts? Researched and written by Jenny Bell Jones with input from current and former DANSRD colleagues

In recent weeks DANSRD has received a number of questions from both students and faculty regarding ANCSA Settlement Trusts. Most of these questions seem to have been generated by a recent push by some of the ANCSA Regional Corporations (ANCs) to establish these Trusts in response to changes in tax requirements under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, also known as Public Law 115-97.   Others have come because these Trusts were part of required course work. While we recommend that shareholders ask their respective ANCs for information if a Settlement Trust is being considered, some questions had come from students who simply were not understanding the information the ANC had provided. With that in mind, we put together some basic information to try to answer some of the questions.

First, the Settlement Trust option for ANCSA Corporations (ANCs) is not new. There were 18 established by December 31st 1999[1] and over 30 are now in existence.[2] The tax incentives are new and they are substantial for the ANCs so in 2018 there is renewed interest in establishing these Trusts. Settlement Trusts were included in the statute[3] as part of the “1991 Amendments’ and there is some good information about the original intent of the Trusts in the “1991: Making it Work’ publication published by the Alaska Federation of Natives to explain changes to ANCSA made in 1987. That publication, which was re-issued by Sealaska in 2001, describes Settlement Trusts as follows:

“Under the “1991’ law, a Native corporation may transfer some or all of its assets – such as surface land, stock and property – to a trust created just for the benefit of its shareholders. The main purposes of the Settlement Trust are to promote the health, education and welfare of Native shareholders; preserve Native heritage and culture; and give greater protection to Native corporation lands.’[4]

In general, the Settlement Trust option appears to be a good one for ANCSA Corporations. It is one that has long been under-utilized for various reasons involving tax structure. Those who want to learn more about this, and the tax law changes, should review a very recent article by Bruce Edwards entitled “The 2017 Tax Act and Settlement Trusts’.[5] The new tax law allows Settlement Trusts to be funded on a pre-tax rather than an after tax basis, as has been the case since 1988, so this is a good incentive for the Corporations as it will give them a substantial tax-break.

These trusts are intended to “promote the health, education and welfare of the beneficiaries of the Trust and preserve the heritage and culture of Alaska Natives‘ and should be able to provide some benefits for shareholders who will then be referred to as beneficiaries of the Trust, however it is important to understand how they work so that people do not have unrealistic expectations.

You can examine a few different Trust Agreements online to get an idea what they contain. The Bristol Bay Native Corporation Trust Agreement online at https://www.bbnc.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Trust-Agreement-of-the-BBNC-Settlement-Trust.pdf  is one of the longer Agreements. If you look at paragraph 6.1.1 Types of Benefits, you will get an idea of what BBNC envisions their Trust might do for beneficiaries. It is important to understand that these benefits are things that could be provided by the Trust, but there is no guarantee that they actually will be. The ability of the Trust to provide any or all of these benefits is dependent on the amount of assets contributed to the Trust and how well those assets are managed going into the future. It is up to the Trustees to decide how best to manage the Trust and distribute benefits.

Settlement Trust Agreements vary. They all will contain some boiler plate language that indicates their compliance with the law, but beyond that shareholders being asked to vote on establishing a Settlement Trust need to read the Trust Agreement for their own ANC and be sure they understand its contents. Something important to consider is who the Trustees will be and how they will be chosen. The Trustees will have very significant power over the assets in the Trust and hold the responsibility for its success so it is important for them to know what they are doing. Some of the Settlement Trust Agreements call for Trustees and ANC Boards of Directors to be one and the same, but the duties and responsibilities for these two positions are quite different, so meeting them both could be quite challenging.

How does a Settlement Trust work?

When the Corporation establishes a Trust it is giving some of its assets to the Trust and the Trust will then manage the assets separately from those that the Corporation keeps. The ANC can do this in one of two ways: on a regular basis, perhaps annually, or as an endowment which means the Corporation makes a large one time contribution to the Trust. Corporations that are using the Settlement Trust as a vehicle to reduce their tax burden would likely make annual contributions. If an ANC endows a Trust this does not prevent it from making more contributions later on.

Under the new tax law, the Corporation makes those contributions to the Trust pre-tax, and then the Trust pays tax at a lower rate. If the Corporation pays dividends to shareholders those dividends are subject to taxation. If the Trust pays distributions to beneficiaries, those distributions are, in most cases, tax exempt. Distributing the assets through the Trust means, at least in theory, that more money is available to the beneficiaries. The CIRI website provides a table which describes clearly how much money might be saved by using a Settlement Trust. It shows what recipients actually keep from $1 million in corporate earnings distributed by an ANC versus a Trust:

Table credit: https://www.ciri.com/overview-of-settlement-trust-after-2017-tax-act/

While there is a clear tax benefit, it may be difficult for a Settlement Trust to actually serve to “promote the health, education and welfare of the beneficiaries of the Trust and preserve the heritage and culture of Alaska Natives’ over the short term in ways that the Corporation does not already do, unless it is very well funded. In order for the principal or “corpus’ of the Trust to grow it will need ongoing contributions from the ANC plus income from investments to remain in the Trust so that over time it can make larger distributions. The Trust cannot pay out everything it receives from the ANC every year because if it does the principal will not grow. If the ANC experiences some bad years where profits are low or non-existent, it may not make any contribution to the Trust. If that happens the Trust needs to have enough in its principal to hold its own using investment income until contributions start again.

If the only actual benefits to Trust beneficiaries are tax free distribution payments, occasional educational benefits, elders benefits and assistance with funeral potlatches, then these benefits are the same as what most shareholders currently receive with the exception of tax exempt distributions.  If distributions from the Trust are always made in the form of cash to beneficiaries, rather than used for some of the things the BBNC Settlement Trust envisions, then it is up to those beneficiaries how the money is spent. That money may or may not be spent to “promote the health, education and welfare of the beneficiaries of the Trust and preserve the heritage and culture of Alaska Natives’. A less obvious but longer term benefit to beneficiaries is the protection that assets acquire once they are a part of the Trust and can no longer be used by the ANC in ways that may incur risk. This does not mean that there is no risk involved with the kinds of investments a Trust can make but risk will be much lower as long as the Trust is managed responsibly.

The tax exemption will result in some small savings for most shareholders who would otherwise pay taxes on an ANC dividend. Shareholders with higher incomes may see more savings. It will make no difference for those whose incomes are so low that they already pay no federal income taxes. The tax exemptions correspond to different tiers described in the new tax law so most of the time they will apply.  If a much larger than usual distribution were to be made then it most likely would not be tax exempt because it would fall into the Tier 4 category of distributions.[6]

How much these Trusts can provide to beneficiaries is really dependent on two things: the amount of the assets that the Corporation contributes to the Trust, and how well those assets are managed going into the future. A Trust cannot do more than it has money for. The BBNC Trust Agreement provides a very expansive picture of all the things it might do. Other Trust Agreements are a lot more conservative in their description of distributions than the BBNC Agreement, and may provide a more realistic picture of what a Settlement Trust could provide.

There is a possibility that Settlement Trusts could do a lot more for Alaska Native communities than the ANCs are currently able to but, as noted earlier, their success will be dependent on how well they are funded by the ANCs and the skill of the Trustees who are managing them.

What will NOT happen if a Settlement Trust is established?

  • Land placed into a Settlement Trust will not become Indian Country.
  • A Settlement Trust cannot operate a businesses and cannot “go under’ as a result of a joint venture the ANC is involved in failing.
  • An ANC cannot convey sub-surface land to a Settlement Trust.
  • Trust distributions are unlikely to be a whole lot more than dividend payments were at least until such time as the Trust is well established and its investments are doing well.
  • If land is placed into the Settlement Trust it cannot then be conveyed to another party.
  • Shareholders will not vote on the transfer of assets from the ANC to the Trust UNLESS the ANC is going to transfer all or substantially all of its assets.
  • The ANC cannot take back assets after it has contributed them.

What should shareholders ask about?

Each ANC has provided different information for shareholders regarding these trusts. We looked at several FAQ sheets and found Calista Corporation to have the most transparent and comprehensive document. We mentioned earlier that shareholders should review materials from their own ANC however most of what Calista has is very standard information and you can review this at https://www.calistacorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Settlement-Trust-FAQs-FINAL.pdf

After researching all of the available materials we compiled a list of general questions that we felt were important, especially for shareholders. Some of these are questions we had been asked by students, and we found we could not answer them using the materials available to us, so it is likely that others would also have trouble answering them:

  • Under what circumstances would distributions from the Settlement Trust received by beneficiaries NOT be exempt from taxation?
  • What is the real impact for people in different tax brackets?
  • How will distributions from this trust affect federal needs-based eligibility programs such as food stamps? (This may be covered under 43 U.S.C. § 1626(c)(E) https://lbblawyers.com/ancsa/1626.htm but it would be a good thing to verify)
  • If Trustees are going to be the same people as the ANC Board how will the rights and responsibilities of each position differ?
  • Could the dual responsibility of being a Board Member and a Trustee create a conflict of interest and, if so, how would that be addressed?
  • What assets are going to be placed into the Trust?
  • Will the distribution that I receive as a Trust beneficiary be INSTEAD OF or IN ADDITION TO the dividend I usually receive from my ANC?
  • Will any surface land owned by the ANC be placed into the trust?
  • For how long and how often will the ANC continue to contribute to the Trust?
  • Is there any requirement for the ANC to continue making contributions to the Trust?
  • Suppose the ANC has no need for a tax deduction in a given year, will it still contribute to the Trust?
  • How will this Trust affect shareholder’s future rights and responsibilities with their ANC? (Some ANCs already have problems getting enough shareholders to vote; will this change make things worse?)
  •  Will Trustees invite shareholder input on decisions on the addition of additional types of distributions that could be created in the future and, if not, how will the Trustees make those decisions?
  • If my ANC has a Foundation how will this be affected by the Trust?
  • What happens to the Trust if shareholders vote to lift restrictions on Corporation shares?

In Conclusion:

Settlement Trusts can secure investments in ways that the ANCs do not, and have the potential to provide significant benefits to shareholders but these benefits will be dependent on:

  • The terms of the Trust Agreement.
  • The amount that the ANC contributes to the Trust.
  • The skill of the Trustees.

DANSRD cannot advise you on how to vote but we recommend you educate yourself thoroughly if you are being asked to vote on establishing a Trust. If you have already voted, be an active beneficiary and keep abreast with your Trust and what it is doing!

[1] Edwards, Bruce N. UNDERSTANDING AND MAKING THE NEW SECTION 646 ELECTION FOR ALASKA NATIVE SETTLEMENT TRUSTS. Alaska Law Review 2001. Page 223

[2] QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE DOYON SETTLEMENT TRUST. FAQS

[3] 43 U.S.C. § 1629e Settlement Trust option https://lbblawyers.com/ancsa/1629e.htm

[4] 1991: Making It Work A Guide to Public Law 100-241 1987 Amendments to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Alaska Federation of Natives Reissued in PDF October 2001 by Sealaska Corporation www.sealaska.com. Page 43

[5] Edwards, Bruce N. THE 2017 TAX ACT AND SETTLEMENT TRUSTS. ALASKA LAW REVIEW Vol. 35:1 https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1538&context=alr

[6] Edwards, Bruce N. THE 2017 TAX ACT AND SETTLEMENT TRUSTS. ALASKA LAW REVIEW Vol. 35:1. Page 25, 26

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Introducing “Theoretical Musings”

Any student who has taken one of my classes knows that I love theory and think they should love it to. And what’s not to love? Theories — your own, disciplinary theories, knowledge paradigms —  are foundational for our research and praxis in this world.  Most students, though, don’t love theory. They often find it clunky and confusing. It’s hard to see why you need to have a theory when you just want to ensure your village has access to quality food. But, how you approach that problem depends on your theory. For example, food security theory and food sovereignty theory are two different approaches to understanding and resolving issues of food insecurity.[1] Food security theory emphasizes physical and economic access to safe, nutritious, and affordable food and looks primarily to market forces to provide that access. Food sovereignty theory arose from the activist group La ViaCampesina (The Way of Peasants), an international farming and peasant movement, and emphasizes the right to maintain and develop local capacity for a nation or area to produce its own basic food needs. Which one fits with your ideas about maintaining and enhancing community food supplies? And, theory doesn’t just help you articulate your perspective on your issue; it also allows you to enter into broader conversations in academia and elsewhere and see how local issues and concerns fit into global contexts.

Trying to encourage students to enjoy theory as I do has led me to think back on all of the times a theory has changed or enhanced my way of thinking about an issue. Certain quotes and perspectives come back to me again and again. Through a series of posts on “theoretical musings’ I am going to share these quotes and theories that have guided me in academia and in life and I hope other faculty will join me in sharing the quotes that have guided them as well. . First up from me will be a post on Kamala Viswesaran’s Fictions of Feminist Ethnography.[2] Look for it soon!

[1] For a brief discussion of food sovereignty theory check out this entry — https://globalsocialtheory.org/concepts/food-sovereignty/ —  at the site “Global Social Theory.’ The site is organized by Gurminder K. Bhambra, Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex. Professor Bhambra is co-editor with Dalia Gebrial and Kerem Nisancioglu of Decolonizing the University (Pluto Press, 2018).

[2] Kamala Visweswaran, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).

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DANSRD Graduation Potluck

Faculty, friends, and family honored the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development graduates (and one Tribal Management graduate) with a potluck tonight at the RSS Gathering Room tonight. Students received graduation gifts and shared a bit about their experiences and plans for the future. Congratulations to our graduates and their families!

Rural Development graduate Terrell Jones with Professors Charlene Stern and Kathleen Meckel
Professor Benson and Alaska Native Studies graduate Sarah Jones
Rural Development graduate Shaelene Holstrom with Professors Judy Ramos, Charlene Stern, and Cathy Brooks
Rural Development graduate Sara Leckband with Professor Charlene Stern
Tribal Management graduate Esau Sinnok with Tribal Management Professor Carrie Stevens and DANSRD Professor Charlene Stern
Rural Development (and Engineering) graduate Diloola Erickson with Professors Charlene Stern and Kathleen Meckel
DANSRD Professor Charlene Stern and Alaska Native Language Center Professor Walkie Charles with Rural Development graduate Christina Edwin

 

Professor Jennifer Carroll with Rural Development graduate Debbie Demientieff
Rural Development graduate Bobbie McNeley with Tribal Management Professor Carrie Stevens and DANSRD Professors Pat Sekaquaptewa, and Diane Benson

DANSRD graduates who could not make it to the potluck are Hitomi Marsh, Kyla Phillips, and Inuuraq Moss. Congratulations ladies, and we missed you!

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DANSRD students at the 2018 Alaska Native Studies Conference

DANSRD students from my class RD 475 Senior Project, Eric Petersen, Pamela Murphy, and Debbie Demientieff, presented on their senior projects at the Alaska Native Studies Conference in Juneau April 14-15. The students did a great job and got feedback and questions throughout the conference about their projects, already making a difference through their scholarship!

Eric Petersen: Alaska Native Child Adoption      

Alaska Native Child Adoption Alaska Native children have been adopted out from their biological families, communities, and cultures for decades creating generations of Alaska Natives disconnected from their cultures. While there has been significant progress made since 1978 when the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was enacted there are still issues that need to be resolved. One significant problem is that biological fathers that are not on the pre-adoption birth certificate are unable to put their name on the child’s birth certificate after the adoption is finalized. This causes a void in the child’s connection to their culture as well as impacting possible benefits from increased blood quantum. This project explores this issue and suggests possible solutions to solve the problem.

Pamela Murphy: Sustainable Education Delivery Plan

The Bristol Bay Campus faces the burning question of how to get post-secondary, relevant, education to remote locations in rural Alaska for all its 42 communities in a way that is sustainable over time. Within the Bristol Bay Region there is a high priority for quality education to prepare youth with skills to succeed in college or vocational schools. Title III funding was recently awarded to the Bristol Bay Campus to develop sustainable programs for Dillingham and its outlining service area to accomplish this vision. The purpose of this project is to establish a Sustainable Delivery Education plan, starting with the mobile welding lab pilot project. This mobile welding lab will feature covered welding stations in a shipping container and start off in the community of St. Paul, Alaska.

Debbie Demientieff: Portraits of Resilience: Celebrating Who We Are

Our traditional value of taking care of our people is essential to this project. Traditionally people have natural role models that exemplify a good way of being, a good way of living. These role models or mentors were naturally known as tribes lived close in kinship and as a community. Now, in a world where families live apart from their tribal lands and their community it is important to share the success of Alaska Native people. People who are living a good life must be uplifted and serve as a good story for others to gain their own understanding of what they themselves are capable of achieving as Alaska Native people. Today, it is important to identify these leaders and role models so that others who may never get to meet them personally are able to learn from their experiences through their stories. This project explores the use of oral history as a means of documenting and sharing Alaska Native achievement and success as a guide for others to excel and reach their own personal level of success. They will be able to look at the experiences of successful people and know that they too can make the effort to realize their own goals.

I am so proud of these students!

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“Beware the Pitfalls of ‘Distancing Language’ in Development Proposals” A Guest Post by Professor Jenny Bell Jones

This was not going to be the subject of my next blog post but a recent observation pushed it to the top of the list. As proposed development of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), also known as the birthing ground of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, moves forward I am noticing a very disturbing trend. More and more people in leadership positions (our Congressional Delegation and Governor Walker in particular) are not only referring to the birthing grounds as “the 1002’; they are no longer even using the acronym ANWR to describe the location of this oil and gas development. This use of distancing language is of grave concern because the term “1002’ is so far removed from what is actually in question, land, animals and people, as to be completely meaningless to all but the tiny number of people who have actually read the part of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) that 1002 refers to. When “1002’ is used instead of ANWR  those who knew what ANWR stood for, and were therefore perhaps somewhat concerned about its future, will no longer make the connection that this development is going to take place in an extremely fragile location inside a wildlife refuge.

Throughout history distancing language has been a very powerful tool of colonialism. Indigenous Peoples were called “savages’ and could then be treated with less (or often no) respect and empathy. Native place names were changed and in turn those places lost the respect that they had commanded because their true names, which told important things about their history and purpose, had been erased. Racial labels were applied to different groups that allowed other groups to feel superior and that sense of superiority (and the fear of losing it) translated into support for exclusion laws, fascism, apartheid, and Jim Crow laws along with many other examples of dehumanizing regimes that harmed entire groups of people.

The weapon of colonial language diversions is still in use all around us today. Animals and birds are no longer living beings but rather they are now “natural resources’. Your home is “an investment’ rather than the place where you live and raise a family and therefore something you might lose because investments fail. “Natural resource extraction’ has taken the place of less palatable but much clearer words like “mining’ or “oil drilling’. Employees are now “human resources’ which makes it easier to disregard their needs as people. This list could be much longer but the underlying dehumanization is clearly there.

Can we dehumanize something that isn’t actually human such as an important area of land like the birthing grounds in the ANWR? If we take the viewpoint that all animals are equal in having needs, and that includes the human species of animals, we can see that dehumanizing may be too narrow but it is the best word we have to get started. If we take concern for life and place out of an equation by eliminating important information from the calculation it makes it oh so much easier to destroy life and place and that kind of action has a dehumanizing effect on us all. Calling something other than what it really is has allowed all sorts of evil to take place around the world. Perhaps we cannot actually dehumanize something that is not human but we can certainly help people to think about it in ways that will provide the same outcomes as dehumanization if we allow them to reduce something as complex and vibrant as the birthing ground of a very large caribou herd to four numbers.

How do we fight back? By politely but firmly demanding that the correct language be used so that everyone is properly informed, and always making sure we use it ourselves. Congress has decided to allow drilling in an environmentally sensitive area of a National Wildlife Refuge which is critically important to many species of birds and wildlife and especially to the Porcupine Caribou Herd which calves there on an annual basis. This is what they have said they want to do and this is how it should be presented to the public. They cannot be allowed to slide out of this by miss-informing the public. Whether it can be done “safely’ or “responsibly’ or “without environmental damage’ remains to be seen. We are not discussing that here. What we are discussing is the need for the public to be properly informed as to the location. “1002’ is meaningless in this regard.

Responsible development requires transparency at every step of the process. If a mine is going to use cyanide as part of its ore processing procedure it cannot just say it will use “chemicals’; the general public does not know enough about mining to make the connection with cyanide. If a development is going to create jobs the public needs to know “how many’, “for whom’ and for “how long’; just saying “jobs will be created’ obscures reality. Builders of a road must be clear about where they intend to put it; they cannot just say it will join up points A and B with no consideration of the route. Proponents of development in the ANWR have promised that it will be done responsibly; they need to begin with honest descriptions of where the development is going to take place so that the American public can make informed decisions about whether or not they support this. “The 1002’ is not an honest description of the birthing ground of the Porcupine Caribou Herd.

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“‘Strengthening Sovereign Responses to Sex Trafficking Conference’ and Our Alaska Native Community” a guest post by Rural Development MA student Cordelia Kellie

Over 300 people gathered January 30-31 in Palm Springs, California to convene at the first annual Strengthening Sovereign Responses to Sex Trafficking in Indian Country conference, on the traditional land of the Agua Caliente peoples. Alaska Native and American Indian community and tribal representatives met with federal agencies, advocates, survivors, sexual assault experts and other national and federal partners from across Native nations, including Alaska.

The organization hosting was the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition (MIWSAC), which shared the story about how years ago, they started hearing anecdotes of sex trafficking in their state; they collected those stories and it became the basis of their research into the topic published in Garden of Truth (2011). Now MIWSAC is one of the leading Native organizations working to end sex trafficking. Also known as human trafficking or modern slavery, sex trafficking is the use of force, coercion, or manipulation for commercial sexual exploitation. Traffickers target a community’s most vulnerable and there are a variety of areas of susceptibility.

When we think of labels, we self-organize conceptually. We put people and things in boxes. We organize the state in our mind as those who are sex trafficked and those who are not sex trafficked, with all our friends, family and acquaintances — seemingly everyone we know — being the latter.

Sex traffickers don’t think that way; they don’t see someone in the box of “not trafficked’, and decide not to touch them. All they see is vulnerability, and too many of our Alaska Native and rural community members are the target.

Is there anyone who might come to mind that you know who may lack a social safety net? Someone under duress from economic hardship? What about someone emotionally vulnerable, suffering from low self-esteem and self-worth, or someone who just needs to get by and has suffered from abuse before? One of the informational focuses of the conference is being able to see the shades of trafficking, and breaking down those conceptual boxes.

Because in those terms, names may come to mind. In these scenarios, those who find themselves, for example, intimidated into performing a sex act so they have a place to stay also might not think of themselves using the term “trafficked,’ but they are. Maybe some think their trafficker is their boyfriend or girlfriend; their trafficker could be a family member. The lack of awareness about sex trafficking in our state is such that many might not be able to identify themselves as being trafficked, or even what that is, or may not be in a position to connect to resources. People often just call it, “the life.’

At the conference, advocates, service providers, government and law enforcement officials and many more were able to learn about the most pressing needs to prevent trafficking and how to support survivors, hearing from survivors themselves. One survivor shared that she honestly didn’t think she was trafficked, she just thought that it was just her way of surviving and having a measure of control.

A representative from Covenant House Alaska spoke at a plenary session about how specifically Alaska Native girls get lured to the city with the promise of a living situation and a job, to find out that it’s not what they thought it would be. Sometimes girls in “the life’ might recruit other girls, like cousins or friends. Some might even find it to be of equal challenges to the struggles faced in their home communities.

But just as the issue was shared and discussed by national experts working in this field, so were solutions.

We know that indigenous women have been sexually exploited on this continent for hundreds of years, as a way to break down Native social structures and institute patriarchy. Modern sex trafficking is a symptom of colonization, and protecting and growing a strong social fabric is part of the work of decolonization. Every community member has a role in being a strong advocate to those in our sphere, and we all have a role in reweaving that social fabric where it is ripped, weak, torn or frayed.

There is a very real need for resources for safe housing, shelters and spaces in our communities so that people wanting to escape a bad situation are able to do so. There is a need for awareness for what our cousins are doing, what our nieces’ lives look like, or if our friends are truly okay. And there needs to be education in our industries and in transportation, of what to look for and what to do if someone suspects a person is being trafficked.

They say in Alaska that everyone knows everyone. If you’re Native, you’re doubly all related.

That goes for Alaska’s most vulnerable, because they are our family members. Ending sex trafficking in Alaska — it is on all of us to be good relatives.

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What is “Responsible’ Development?* A Guest Post by Professor Jenny Bell Jones

There has been a lot of talk about “responsible development’ in Alaska recently. The Pebble Limited Partnership assured the public they will develop a “responsible’ plan for the mine.[1] The Alaska Delegation repeat the mantra that oil and gas development in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will be “responsible development’. U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, just announced the “next step for responsibly developing the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program (National OCS Program) for 2019-2024‘.[2] Can we believe that the inclusion of responsibility will make these development projects acceptable?

If the justification for allowing development is down to paring it with responsibility we need to examine and understand what this actually means. What is “responsible development’, who does it and who holds them responsible to what standards? How far does responsibility extend?

Insisting that development will be “responsible’ allows everyone to walk away feeling good about the future. “We’ will do this “responsibly’ so everything will be OK. There will be no negative impacts on the environment or the wildlife that lives there because we will be responsible. People who never supported that development before can now feel comfortable. People who live far away will sleep easier knowing that only responsible development will take place in those remote pristine locations they value so highly but will likely never visit. Really though, should anyone be so complacent … should anyone actually believe that if responsible is hyphenated with development everything will be OK?

I worked in heavy industry for over twenty-five years and must question why we are suddenly talking about “responsible development’ when it has been my observation that most if not all industrial developers in this country already believe they are working responsibly. The discussion about developments  such as ANWR drilling and Pebble Mine is not and should not have ever been about whether development will be responsible; it is about whether development should take place at all. For many years that was the focus of the argument and those who wanted to preserve the Refuge for its intended purpose were the winners because they held the stronger position. Rational people, including people like myself who were generally pro-development, understood that, no matter how responsibly people worked, there were risks inherent to industrial development that we simply should not take in some places. The Refuge is one of those places and the addition of responsibility has not changed that.

Ordinary citizens behave responsibly in response to something; a law, a custom, a social norm, a duty to family or community. We have a moral and/or legal obligation to behave correctly towards something or in respect of it.[3] Often we behave responsibly absent anything actually requiring us to do so; we may return lost items or assist strangers because we believe it is the “right’ thing to do and not doing the right thing would be irresponsible. How does this translate into responsibility for an industrial developer … to whom or what are they being held responsible and who is doing the holding?

Developers are held responsible to the laws and regulations of the jurisdiction where they are developing, and compliance will depend on the strength of the rule of law in that jurisdiction. They may be involved in activities related to “corporate social responsibility’ (CSR), but when it comes down to implementation of projects they will do what is required for legal compliance and no more. They will not be doing the corporate equivalent of voluntarily returning lost items or assisting strangers in the course of their development projects because nothing requires this, and doing so could even be construed as irresponsible use of assets by self-interested shareholders. To the contrary, if there is an accident or a broken law, corporations will be looking for ways to divest themselves of as much responsibility as possible as quickly as they can in order to protect their interest and those of their shareholders. We might examine how long Exxon spent fighting liability for the damages incurred by Alaskan coastal communities after the 1989 oil spill[4] or the way in which British Petroleum (BP) limited its responsibility (and billed the U.S. public by deducting court expenses as ordinary business costs on tax returns) after the Deepwater Horizon deep water drilling blow-out in 2010[5] to see how corporations address responsibility when an accident happens.

If the issue of direct responsibility for accidents is not enough to make us rethink development activities in areas where proper response is difficult or impossible, there is also the question of extended responsibility for things like climate change and air pollution resulting from the burning of the fossil fuels. When the Native Village of Kivalina brought federal suit[6] against multiple industrial defendants in 2008 in an effort to hold the industries responsible for their contributions to global warming, the suit failed. None of the defendants admitted any responsibility for the damage in Kivalina. More recently in 2017, three cases were filed in California state court that “seek to hold major fossil fuel companies liable for the effects of sea level rise they allege to be caused by climate change.’[7] Most current, in January 2018, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a lawsuit against five major oil companies that will seek to collect damages to pay for the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change on the City.[8] These suits seek to hold corporations responsible for the damage caused by the use of their products rather than any damage caused by extraction and it remains to be seen whether the courts will find that their responsibility extends that far.

Climate change is not the only area where responsibility should be questioned. Two new 2017 studies, from Imperial College, London, and UNICEF, “Impact of London’s road traffic air and noise pollution on birth weight: retrospective population based cohort study’[9] and “Danger in the Air: How air pollution can affect brain development in young children’[10] discuss the dangers that air pollution presents to unborn children. According to the Guardian, the studies found: “Air pollution significantly increases the risk of low birth weight in babies, leading to lifelong damage to health, according to a large new study. The research was conducted in London, UK, but its implications for many millions of women in cities around the world with far worse air pollution are “something approaching a public health catastrophe’, the doctors involved said. Globally, two billion children — 90% of all children — are exposed to air pollution above World Health Organization guidelines. A Unicef study also published on Wednesday found that 17 million babies suffer air six times more toxic than the guidelines.‘[11] Which companies, we must ask, will voluntarily admit responsibility for damage to unborn babies that results from the use of their products?

There is no real answer to what constitutes responsible development but one thing we know is that it will result in changes to the landscape and for the inhabitants. It also, in the case of minerals extraction, results in products that contribute in large amounts to human and environmental damage whether development is conducted responsibly or not. What do we really expect here from a “responsible’ company? Can we expect them to voluntarily restrict activities that will contribute to long term damage to the environment if no laws require them to do so? If we want to keep the bar for responsibility high we need to keep laws and regulations in place requiring this.

Responsible does not mean small; a very large development can be conducted in compliance with the law. Responsible has nothing to do with jobs; new projects do not require job creation. Responsible does not mean accident free; it means companies will make reasonable efforts towards prevention. It is unlikely that BP would admit to being irresponsible in their management of the Deepwater Horizon.  Trans Canada, the owner-operator of Keystone pipeline that leaked 210,000 gallons of oil in November 2017[12] is not going to say they were being irresponsible in their maintenance of the line. If there is any “irresponsible’ behavior found it will be up to a judge in a court room to find it. The companies will say they were doing everything they were supposed to and the problem is, they are probably correct. This is why it is so important to question just what exactly the standard of responsibility is when a company is involved in development and make sure those standards are not reduced.

The Story of the Kulluk

For an Alaskan example of responsibility gone awry we can examine the grounding of the Kulluk offshore drilling unit while in transit from Unalaska to Seattle for repairs in December 2012. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Marine Accident Brief provides some information about responsible parties:

  • Tow master, on board the Kulluk’•overall responsibility for controlling the movement of the Kulluk and operation of all assisting vessels during the tow, from unmooring in Alaska to mooring in Washington state, as well as interfacing with the Kulluk crew and other personnel
  • Offshore installation manager (OIM), on board the Kulluk’•in command of the Kulluk
  • Shell’s Alaska marine manager’•Shell shoreside manager, located in Anchorage; oversight responsibility for planning and managing Kulluk rig moves
  • Aiviq master–in command of the dedicated tow vessel and its crew; legally responsible for the tow once the towline was made fast and the vessels were under way[13]

And: “The towing plan was developed by Shell’s Alaska marine manager and reviewed by the Aiviq master, the Shell Alaska operations manager, Alaska drilling manager, logistics team lead, health safety and environmental team lead, emergency response specialist, tow master, Noble Drilling Kulluk rig manager and operations manager for Alaska, and the GL Noble Denton warranty surveyor. The Shell Alaska operations manager was the final approval authority. Because he was on vacation at the time the tow plan was approved, a subordinate whom he had designated approved the tow plan in his place.’[14]

The NTSB Brief indicates that “The series of failures that led to this accident began when Shell failed to fully address the risks associated with a late December tow in Alaskan waters, and ended with the grounding of the Kulluk. Although multiple parties were involved in the review and approval of the tow plan, the ultimate decision to approve and implement the tow was Shell’s. The dynamics of a single entity approving a go/no-go decision in the face of risks, with multiple parties involved, have been addressed in studies of previous catastrophic events. This research demonstrates that, even with formal review processes involving multiple entities, the ability of parties involved in a decision to articulate and draw attention to risks is limited when a single entity bears ultimate decision-making responsibility and at the same time favors a particular outcome of the decision. For this reason, Shell, as the organization responsible for designing, approving, and implementing the tow plan, is considered to be ultimately responsible for this accident.’[15]

The Kulluk incident (in which there was no loss of life and no environmental damage) indicates that, even when many people involved are trying to be responsible accidents still happen. The Brief states “The potential hazards facing the transit were known. The day after departure, the Aiviq master wrote an e-mail to the Kulluk tow master stating, in part, “I believe that this length of tow, at this time of year, in this location, with our current routing guarantees an ***kicking.’[16] None of the responsible parties stopped the tow.  Also of concern when we think about responsibility is the reason for the tow to Seattle; “Shipyard capabilities and equipment in the Seattle area were deemed more suitable for performing the Kulluk’s planned maintenance and repairs than facilities available in Alaska,…’[17] Is Alaska being irresponsible in encouraging offshore drilling activities when insufficient support infrastructure for maintenance and repair exists in the State?

Will companies volunteer responsibility?

Examining the track records of companies in other countries may also help us evaluate future responsibility. CSR may be prominent in the public relations materials on a corporate website but how are they actually behaving in other jurisdictions? Are they taking the moral high ground and conducting business the way we would want them to here, or are they involved in corrupt business practices because they can get away with it or because that is “normal’ in that country. The oil and gas industry lobbied to have the Trump administration repeal a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation requiring oil and mining companies to disclose their payments to foreign governments in February 2017.[18] This action reversed much needed anti-corruption reforms regarding how the mining and oil and gas industries do international business and allows them to hide payments to national governments.

In case we think this would not concern us in Alaska let us remember that these multinational companies are doing business here. In November 2017 the Trump administration issued Eni US, a unit of Italy’s Eni, a permit to explore for oil from an artificial island in the Beaufort Sea.[19] ENI has a corporate governance section on its U.S. website and cites “integrity and transparency’ as their key principles.[20] The site makes no mention of ENI’s current involvement as a defendant on trial in Milan, Italy, against charges of corruption over a $1.3 billion oil deal in Nigeria together with Royal Dutch Shell.[21]  While the outcome of the case may find both companies to be innocent of illegal dealings in Nigeria, their ongoing involvement in locations where corruption is the norm might raise some questions about the company’s commitment to integrity and transparency. Can we really expect companies that hide behind the “that is how they do business here’ excuse when accused of involvement in corrupt practices elsewhere to behave responsibly here unless laws make it very clear that they must? In the Kulluk incident, the NTSB Brief indicated that Shell might have incurred millions of dollars in state property tax had the Kulluk remained in Alaska into 2013.[22] Was Shell choosing responsibility to its bottom line over responsibility to the environment and the crews of the Kulluk and Aivik? They were not breaking any laws by proceeding with the tow.

If we are to be truly responsible to land and wildlife we will not allow industrial development in some locations at all. If we are responsible … and honest … we must admit that oil spills and industrial accidents are a part of the industry and, no matter how responsible companies are, they will happen. Down-stream effects of oil and gas development are inevitable; do we want to live with those? Some examples such as ocean plastics[23], ocean acidification[24] and severe air pollution[25] may be life threatening; do we want to make that choice?

If “responsibility’ does not eliminate spills and accidents, does not control size, guarantee jobs, or reduce pollution, and does not protect against corruption, then any development that takes place in ANWR will be business as usual, just like any other development. Is that what we want?

 *Parts of this article were published in abbreviated form in the January 21st edition of the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer Community Perspectives entitled “Examining ‘Responsible Development’ of ANWR’

[1] Harball, Elizabeth. With new life under Trump administration, fresh Pebble Mine details released. Alaska Public Media. January 5th 2018 https://www.alaskapublic.org/2018/01/05/with-new-life-under-trump-administration-fresh-pebble-mine-details-released/

[2] Secretary Zinke Announces Plan For Unleashing America’s Offshore Oil and Gas Potential. U.S. Dept. of Interior Press Release January 4th 2018. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-zinke-announces-plan-unleashing-americas-offshore-oil-and-gas-potential

[3] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/responsibility

[4]Rosen, Yereth. Exxon Valdez oil spill saga reaches anticlimactic end in federal court. Anchorage Daily News. October 15th 2015.  https://www.adn.com/environment/article/exxon-valdez-saga-reaches-anticlimatic-end-federal-court/2015/10/16/

[5] Laursen, Wendy. Winners and Losers in Deepwater Horizon Payout. The Maritime Executive. April 5th 2016 https://maritime-executive.com/article/winners-and-losers-in-deepwater-horizon-payout

[6] Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil Corporation et al. 696 F.3d 849 (2012)

[7] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0ffacf4b-0828-4dab-8675-1d0ab3670f2e

[8] Neuman, William. To Fight Climate Change, New York City Takes On Oil Companies. January 10th 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/nyregion/new-york-city-fossil-fuel-divestment.html?_r=0

[9] Toledano, Mireille B et all. Impact of London’s road traffic air and noise pollution on birth weight: retrospective population based cohort study Imperial College. November 2017 https://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5299

[10] Danger in the Air. UNICEF, Division of Data, Research and Policy, December 2017   https://www.unicef.org/environment/wp-content/uploads/sites/707/Danger_in_the_Air.pdf

[11] Carrington, Damian. Air pollution harm to unborn babies may be global health catastrophe, warn doctors. Guardian, U.S. Edition December 5th 2017.    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/05/air-pollution-harm-to-unborn-babies-may-be-global-health-catastrophe-warn-doctors

[12]Gonzales, Richard. Keystone Pipeline Oil Spill Reported In South Dakota. NPR November 16th 2017. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/16/564705368/keystone-pipeline-oil-spill-reported-in-south-dakota

[13] NTSB Marine Accident Brief. Grounding of Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Kulluk NTSB/MAB-15/10 pages 2 and 3

[14] NTSB Marine Accident Brief. Grounding of Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Kulluk NTSB/MAB-15/10 page 3

[15] Id page 12

[16] Id page 5

[17] Id page 3

[18]C.K. Economist Blog February 17th 2017. Donald Trump signs a law repealing a disclosure rule for oil companies https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/02/big-signing

[19] Gardner, Timothy. Trump administration permits ENI to drill for oil off Alaska. Reuters, November 28th 2017.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alaska-oil-eni/trump-administration-permits-eni-to-drill-for-oil-off-alaska-idUSKBN1DS33B

[20] https://www.eni.com/en_NA/eni-north-america/eni-profile/corporate-governance/corporate-governance.shtml

[21]Reed, Stanley. Shell and Eni to Be Tried Over $1.3 Billion Nigerian Oil Deal. New York Times. December 20th 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/business/energy-environment/shell-eni-italy-nigeria.html

[22] NTSB Marine Accident Brief. Grounding of Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Kulluk NTSB/MAB-15/10 page 3

[23] Mathew Taylor. $180bn investment in plastic factories feeds global packaging binge. Guardian Tuesday December 26th 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/26/180bn-investment-in-plastic-factories-feeds-global-packaging-binge

[24] James Ayre. Ocean Acidification Increasing Rapidly In Western Arctic Ocean. March 3rd 2017 https://cleantechnica.com/2017/03/03/ocean-acidification-increasing-rapidly-western-arctic-ocean/

[25] Shreya Goswami. If you’re pregnant, the pollution can seriously harm your baby. December 12th 2017. https://www.indiatoday.in/lifestyle/health/story/air-pollution-harmful-baby-pregnancy-exposure-birth-defects-health-lifest-1105517-2017-12-12

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How to Prepare an “A,’ and Other Grades: A Tongue in Cheek Look at the Culinary Classification of Grades

Grades are a difficult subject for both faculty and students. For faculty, how do we judge the work of another person? How do we guide students towards excellence in so many different areas, balancing various Western academic requirements while encouraging students to find their own place culturally and conceptually? How do we use grades to motivate students to work harder versus driving them to give up? How do we reward perseverance and hard work as well as excellence? What is fair for students in different circumstances?

For students, how do I meet the expectations of the class? What are my personal strengths and interests and how can I call on them in this class? How much time can I, or do I want to, spend on this assignment? How do I get my point across to the faculty and fellow students? Do I have to give up pieces of myself to get a good grade?

In my classes there are many ways to get an “A’ and the path will be different for each student. Personally, I like to think of grades in culinary terms. We all love food and we all need food to grow and thrive, but we can’t always get or prepare the food we want. So, here is my culinary classification of grades based on some of my culinary experiences.

An “A’ grade is the highest level of excellence: the pinnacle of taste, skill, and nutrition.

  • A gourmet four course meal with a fancy dessert (any cuisine, but for the dessert something decadent with dark chocolate is my preference, in case, like, you wanted to cook for me). However, if you start making me bacon foam or deconstructed something you had better be able to link your theoretical food to real world applications. And if you start telling me that reindeer MUST be cooked such and such a way because Science (or Tradition, or your personal preference) I’m going to ask you to examine and define your theoretical paradigm. Actually, I’ll ask you to do that anyways.
  • Fresh frozen whitefish dipped in seal oil.
  • A culinary fusion of traditional and modern flavors. I once had lemon pepper mikiaq (fermented whale meat) that totally blew my mind, and my taste buds.
  • Just trih (troth, masru, mousefood, Indian potato, Eskimo potato). Simple, basic, but so good and you harvested it yourself.
  • Indian ice cream made with moose meat and ch’aghwah ghwąįį (bone grease) and whipped by hand. Never had it, but the process sounds pretty impressive.

A “B’ grade is still very good and it also can be earned in many ways. I think of a “B’ grade as the comfort food of grades.

  • Moose soup. Now, some will say this is an “A’ and sometimes it is, but your basic moose soup is comforting and warm. Not too fancy, but good to make and eat whenever you need a good meal.
  • Homemade macaroni and cheese. Seriously, I’ve loved it since I was a kid. Don’t judge me.
  • Bella biscuits (You Fort Yukoners know what I mean).
  • That Jell-O and fruit salad your sister always makes for the holidays. Actually, not my favorite, but my husband really likes it.
  • Fry bread. Not the most nutritious, but hard to make right and oh so delicious.   You know you love it.

“C’ grades are ok. Still acceptable, and often the best you can do at that particular time. There’s no shame in that. A “C’ grade is the quick packed lunch, just getting something good in the belly of grades.

  • Pilot bread and jarred salmon. Now, if you jarred the salmon yourself that might be a higher grade, but sometimes you have to just grab what your grandma gave you out of the cupboard and go.
  • A veggie tray that you selected the veggies and chopped yourself with a couple of good dips. If you grabbed a pre-chopped veggie tray from the supermarket I’m going to appreciate the healthy vegetable angle, but I expect a bit more effort.
  • A homemade meat and cheese sandwich with mayo and mustard (the good kind) on store bought bread. Yeah, you slapped it together, but it’s still pretty tasty and gets the job done. Homemade bread may elevate this.

A “D’ grade is not so good, but it does happen occasionally, and there aren’t that many ways to get one. A “D’ grade is the fast food of grades (I expect some people will disagree with me on this).

  • That pre-cut veggie tray from the supermarket. Or the pre-made sandwiches. Or the frozen cheesecake bites. I know they can be great for a potluck, but they definitely aren’t the star and you only do it when you are really short on time.
  • Anything from McDonald’s. Or Taco Bell. Or any of the others. I may like the taste of McDonald’s fries, but they give me a serious stomach ache.

An “F’ grade says either something came up that kept you from putting in effort or you simply couldn’t be bothered. An “F’ grade is the spoiled food of grades.

  • That freezer burned fish from three years ago you found in the corner of your chest freezer that your teenager missed when he was supposed to be cleaning it out last summer.
  • Thanksgiving leftovers a week later. Are they still edible? I don’t want to risk it. This usually happens when you don’t plan to use your leftovers in a timely manner. Yes, this happens to me all the time.

We may disagree about what actually qualifies as an “A,’ “B,’ “C,’ or “D’ grade (I think most of us agree about what makes an “F’). Some of us are all about the flavor. Others care more about how hard it is to prepare or that you harvested it in the correct way. A good meal can be brought low if you use canned peas (for me, anyway). A quick snack can be elevated when you use the wild blueberry jam you jarred last fall. We may want to sit down to a great meal every day or we may only enjoy them once in a while. Every faculty is different and every student is different, but we can all sit down for a good meal at the table together.

What are your favorite foods and where would you put them on the culinary classification of grades?

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“Putting the Development Back Into Rural Development: Finding Shared Language.” A guest post by Professor Jenny Bell Jones

Has “development’ somehow become a bad word because of how it has been pursued in Alaska? Do some of us tend to shy away from serious discussions about development because the word has become synonymous with big business, oil and gas and mining and we see ourselves in opposition to these pursuits, believing that they can only bring destruction to rural and Native communities and the lands they depend on? If this is the case it is time for a second look at development and how we approach it because history shows us that development in one form or another has been with us since the dawn of time. It will affect us no matter what we do so if we can control those effects we will be much better off. We cannot expect to control them if we do not participate in the discussions.

Development of some kind is coming to our communities whether we like this or not. The questions we must answer are what kinds of development do we want and how to best attain them? Where do we see our communities twenty or fifty years from now and how do we want to get there? What do people in those communities really want to see in terms of development and how are they going to implement that vision? Can we come to an agreement about what people mean when they say they want development, or that they do not want it?

It is not enough to blindly oppose all “development,’ digging in our heels and refusing to move forward, and we must be realistic about the things we do oppose. This is where discussion comes in; if we oppose something have we really thought through our reasons for opposition? If the development we oppose would put local residents to work, and there are community members who want this, have we come up with a viable alternative? It simply is not sufficient to throw out vague statements about “alternative energy jobs’ if we oppose oil and gas development unless there is some real possibility of those jobs being available.

How can we change the conversation? First we need to be realistic about the future of the communities; if they are to be healthy safe places to live and raise families they will need to have healthy economies. No amount of language revitalization or cultural revival can substitute for economic stability. Only the very smallest most remote communities might be able to contemplate a future dependence on subsistence resources alone and even the people in those communities need some money to get by. It will be “subsistence and’ not “subsistence or’ going into the future and what the “and’ will look like depends on how we approach development and economics in each community. Instead of avoiding development we need to engage with it head on and put our research efforts into identifying and implementing development projects that will actually improve and sustain rural economies.

What do we really need? Is it jobs, is it better infrastructure, cheaper energy, better transportation … is it just one of these things or varying combinations of all of them? What kind of jobs do people in rural communities really want and what changes are they willing to accept in those communities in order to have those jobs? All of these questions and more are ones that Rural Development (RD) majors need to be trying to find answers to as they go through their academic programs.

This is hard work. It involves looking at the money and it involves talking to people with very different views on development from those we may hold dear ourselves. It requires that we learn “new stuff’ about development and the different options that are available. We have to take a long hard look at the community involved to try to figure out what kind of development is right. We have to make sure the people from the community have a space where they can speak honestly about what they want. We have to let go of ideas about all development being “bad’ and instead differentiate clearly between development we want and development we don’t.

Development includes a huge range of opportunities in Alaska, opportunities that can really help build sustainability in rural and Native communities which will in turn allow things like language and culture to thrive. No community survives for long without a functioning economy. For hundreds of years what we call “subsistence’ today formed the economies of Native communities in Alaska but those economies and the technology that supported them were not static; they developed as time went by and new tools became available via trading relationships and invention by community members. Today many communities retain aspects of subsistence as integral parts of their economies but those economies have developed and now include many things that were not there fifty or a hundred years ago. It is those things, some of which have been very positive, that we need to talk about in our development discussions.

Development is not just about ANWR or Pebble Mine or drilling for oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea; it is also about the wood burning boiler and greenhouse at the school in Tok, the wind farm in Kongiganak, mariculture and kelp farming in Southeast and hydroponic farming in Kotzebue. Development is about Igiugig finding a way to recycle so that they can extend the life of the landfill, local guys manufacturing aluminum skiffs in Naknek or running small businesses in Bethel, and small scale hydro projects around the State. It is about sustainable forestry projects, expanded reindeer herding programs, bison ranches, growing industrial hemp for building and other products, and cultivating specialty crops like peonies and Rhodiola Rosea for export.

Development needs infrastructure; better roads, energy efficient homes, high speed internet, cheaper transportation and better access to health care. Development means making sure that communities have proper law enforcement and tribal and local governments have systems in place to prevent corruption. It means finding ways to respond to climate change and mitigate its effects in Native and rural communities. All of these and more must be part of the development conversation and they all provide opportunities for students.

When Congressional delegates and business leaders make sweeping statements about “all Alaska Natives want development’ and “large majorities of Alaskans support development’ they are very likely being truthful, but something important gets lost in that conversation. If “development’ means affordable energy, better schools, more job prospects and safer communities it is probably safe to say that a majority of Alaskans, Native and non-Native are in support. If on the other hand, “development’ means all of the above but only at the expense of the environment and overall quality of life, and the benefits do not accrue to those closest to the development project but instead line the pockets of people far away, then the numbers of those in support are likely to be much smaller. The second kind of development is the colonial style and it would be very interesting to find out how many Alaskans really support that.

We can move away from colonial style development where “natural resources’ are extracted and profits go out of state, and we can move away from development that contributes to climate change but neither of these things will happen if we opt out of the conversation. These things will not go away overnight, and we need to accept that, but they will go away much faster if we are able to bring viable alternatives to the table. As long as those alternatives are lacking, the State will continue to default back to promoting large scale resource extraction because nothing else is on the table that they think will work.

As Rural Development practitioners we must work to bridge the communications gap. Find out what people really want and convey an honest message. Do the kind of surveying that produces accurate data, not the kind that skews answers to fit with political or personal goals.  Be willing to talk to “the other side’ not just with those who share our own position. Study the economics of development and come up with proposals that are feasible. Look beyond the short term profit motives of colonial style development and consider long term schemes that will grow slowly and sustainably over time. If we want our communities to be vibrant healthy places to live in fifty years’ time then our development language and planning needs to reflect that. If the State of Alaska shares that goal then we need to develop shared language on how we will all achieve it and we can only do that by talking with each other.