Tag: Education

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Collaboration with Tribes and Alaska Native Organizations Vital

My Inupiaq name is Iñukualuk and my Denaakk’e name is Tł’oyenaadleno. My English name is Jennifer (Maguire) Adams. I am originally from Allakaket, Alaska. My grandparents are the late Johnson and Bertha (Nictune) Moses of Allakaket and Alatna. My parents are the late Bob and Cora Maguire of Allakaket/Fairbanks.

I was hired by the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Indigenous Studies as an assistant professor in the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development in September 2023. I believe that one of the reasons I was hired is because of my involvement with Alaska Native organizations and Tribes. My service on the board of directors for the Doyon Foundation offers a collaborative pathway for education projects with the University of Alaska, as well as the consultative work with my Tribe (Allakaket) on infrastructure and grant projects. Some of my colleagues are also engaged in Tribal projects that bring us closer to Tribes and Indigenous people in Alaska.

Examples of other collaborations that can help both the University and Tribes are: 

  • language revitalization,
  • workforce development, 
  • Tribal education projects, 
  • self governance,
  • Indigenous knowledge,
  • infrastructure projects,
  • cultural security and wellbeing,
  • state and federal government advocacy, 
  • problem-solving research that advances Native communities, etc.

These types of collaborations create two-way benefits for all involved – good for the University and good for the Tribes. For example, if the University collaborates with a Tribe to increase capacity in workforce development, there are funding streams and grants that can benefit both entities.

US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland spoke about the disconnect between education and tribal communities in her 2022 commencement speech at Haskell Indian Nations University. Higher education institutions can be agents of progressive change if they collaborate more with tribal communities. 

Tribal College Journal (TCJ) points out that an expert leader (of which Alaska Native tribal communities have many) needs to be identified to help produce the partnership effectively. TCJ also advises that when creating and sustaining a mutually beneficial partnership for all parties, it is also important to identify what should be done by other local government entities like boroughs, local chapters and schools.

Steps forward can start with identifying issues of common interest and developing resources that can be transferred. Alaska Native people, organizations and Tribes should have input into what types of career programs are most in demand, to help shape University offerings. Traditional knowledge should also be incorporated into higher education wherever and whenever possible. Drawing from the wisdom of Alaska Native Elders can only enrich the University. 

Applied research that will contribute to actual rural Alaska community development should also improve living conditions for those communities. The Nature Conservancy points out that Indigenous “communities collectively manage at least one-quarter of the world’s lands, 17% of all forest carbon, and vast stretches of freshwater and marine habitats. Their stewardship and management often achieve greater conservation results and sustain more biodiversity than government protected areas”. There is a lot to learn from Indigenous people about managing the environment.

Another example is at Arizona State University, where

the combined efforts of American Indian Studies and the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning have helped support communities in the Navajo Nation in developing land use plans, updating older land use plans and supporting discussion and community education for economic development efforts and planning for new infrastructure projects.

ASU also has a mixed-reality game project called WaterSIMmersive where Indigenous students start a dialogue with tribal and rural community members…to better understand and voice their water concerns.

An example at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is the Tamamta Program, which is “centered on elevating 14,000+ years of Indigenous stewardship and bridging Indigenous and Western sciences to transform graduate education and research in fisheries and marine sciences”. 

It is not hard to imagine how the University can increase the benefits by cooperating with Alaska Native organizations and communities. Tribal people and communities can benefit as well. There are many exciting possibilities!

I look forward to bringing my students into this type of real-world community development, since it is beneficial to their learning and beneficial for Tribes to have a new generation to assist them with collaborative projects. 

If you know of an Alaska Tribe that has a project they would like to collaborate or request assistance with, please contact us at the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development (DANSRD) in the College of Indigenous Studies! Our email address is uaf-dansrd@alaska.edu and our website is https://www.uaf.edu/dansrd/.

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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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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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Listening with your ears and your eyes and your heart

I think that sometimes we listen better when we have to struggle to understand. I know that for myself, one of the reasons I am drawn to cross-cultural life is that combination of sharing a perspective, but coming at it from very different traditions, and having to focus intently on creating shared understanding and meaning. I had an especially powerful experience in this kind of communicating at the Ethnography and Education Symposium in El Paso.

As mentioned previously (see here for our first post and here for Professor Pat’s post on her experiences) In September I went with professors Diane Benson and Pat Sekaquaptewa to the 14th Inter-American Symposium on Ethnography and Education in El Paso, Texas and across the border in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. One of the unique aspects of this symposium is that it is conducted in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Spanish was probably the most common language at the conference; most presentations were in Spanish and the majority of participants spoke Spanish and/or were bilingual or trilingual. While I am fairly proficient in English (we hope!), I know nothing of Spanish or Portuguese so depended on the conference organizers and the kindness of fellow participants to translate.

This worked out wonderfully! In fact, I felt that I sometimes got more out of the Spanish and Portuguese presentations than the English presentations because I was focused so intently on understanding. I found that I could understand some of the Spanish and Portuguese, especially if they were talking about familiar issues and ideas, which they usually were. I could understand the written word a little better and many presenters included the text of their presentations in their PowerPoint slides. I know text heavy PowerPoints are not recommended, but in this case, they were incredibly helpful. Finally, conference organizers and fellow participants were willing to whisper translations to me and other non-Spanish or Portuguese-speaking people, providing a triangulated learning environment where I listened to the spoken word, read the written word, and listened to the translation simultaneously. It was an intensely invigorating learning environment. Indeed, throughout the symposium, I reflected that, while people didn’t speak my language, they spoke my language: la pedagogía crítica, la educacíon holística, descolonizar, epistemología, la autobiographfía critíca, la indignación, el amor…this is the language of my heart.

One of the unexpected themes of the conference was the role of “love’ in education and crossing and living in border spaces. In her keynote entitled “Lengua, aprendizaje y amor: Lo que los jóvenes transculturales, transnacionales y translingüísticos nos pueden enseñar‘ (Language, learning and love: what young transcultural, transnational and translinguistics can teach us), Professor Marjorie Faulstich Orellana discussed her work with children and the role of love as a motivator for learning. She looked at the ways borders, physical, cultural, and linguistic, are built and patrolled and how such boundaries interfere with our ability to enter relationships with openness and to gain understanding. She spoke of the artificial divide between the heart and the mind and the ways academia and other institutions privilege the brain over our hearts and our bodies. She spoke of bringing “love,’ that foundation of human connection, back into what we do and how we do it.

Her discussion ignited a conversation about power, positionality, and the appropriation of discourse over the remainder of the symposium. How can and why should people outside of the power structure respond with love? How can we open up spaces for love in academic settings and how do we protect people for whom the vulnerability of love is a very real risk to their lives and careers? What can you do when, as in Argentina, the government appropriates the discourse of love and uses it against you?

These questions and more wended their way through the conference and continue even now. Just today, Professor Orellana sent a post conference reflection on her talk and experience and shared blog posts where she continues to explore the concept of love in education. I recommend you check out her posts “Talking about love in a time of vitriole” and   “Why love? Some reflections on splitting and healing.”

As for me, I’ve been thinking about the role of love in the research of my students. How can I help them center love in their research? How can I help them articulate their love in a way that honors their cultures and experiences and yet meets their goals within the academy as well? How can I create a space in the academy for them to take the risks necessary to not just acknowledge their love, but openly ground their research in love? Every semester I hope to make the border spaces in my classes broader; to allow my students to re-contextualize knowledge and build their own path to a decolonized education.   This brings me back to that cross-cultural life, that life on the border where we struggle to create shared understanding and meaning.   That border space we occupy together.