Project Description

This environmental anthropology study will provide a detailed ethnographic picture of the ways in which Alaska Native communities are responding to global challenges while at the same time retaining and practicing their core indigenous values in the face of many uncertainties. Previous research has identified indigenous groups and women as some of the most vulnerable populations affected by pronounced political, economic, and environmental shifts. In this study we seek to examine gendered responses to the processes of globalization and significant social-environmental change and the shifting roles of women in the midst of such changes. This research will provide an in-depth study of the gendered, multigenerational responses to specific contemporary changes in Barrow, Alaska, an I»upiat subsistence-based community and economic and administrative hub of Arctic Slope region. While it is widely recognized that women play important roles as providers in this region, more research is needed on the evolving nature of women's "work"» given new vocational and educational opportunities in the context of shifting mixed economies, increasing regulation of the environment, cumulative oil and gas exploration and extraction, and pronounced environmental change.

Project Funding

National Science Foundation
Amount: $276,272
Start Date: 2013-09-00
End Date: 2016-01-00

 

 

Research Team