Doctoral Dissertation Research: Lights Out for Native Alaska? Power, Water, Sanitation, and Health in the Northwest Arctic Borough

博士论文研究：阿拉斯加原住民的熄灯？北极西北区的电力、水、卫生和健康阿拉斯加拥有丰富的湖泊和河流，人们不会把它与水资源短缺联系起来。然而，不断上涨的能源价格和极端寒冷正在日益造成农村村庄无法获得足够的清洁饮用水和家庭用水的情况。该项目调查了西北北极自治市（NWAB）生活在人为缺水的个人和家庭的日常经历，人为缺水被定义为由于贫困等结构性不平等导致的卫生用水和饮用水不足。这种情况有可能逆转几十年来公共卫生方面的成就，这些成就降低了阿拉斯加土著人的传染病发病率和死亡率。通过民族志访谈、参与者观察和档案研究，调查者将1）检查历史、政治和经济因素，这些因素结合联合收割机阻碍了乡村政府满足其人口基本需求的能力; 2）探索电力、下水道和供水系统的损失对社区、家庭和个人的物质和社会影响; 3）调查地方和官僚机构对必要公用事业不足和相关政策变化的反应。民族志项目使用批判医学人类学的理论视角来调查这些条件是如何通过文化，社会关系，健康和福祉进行调解和生产的。在整个过程中，调查员将研究个人如何利用文化建设来理解水，健康，贫困，以及今天成为阿拉斯加原住民意味着什么。这项研究做出了一些超越阿拉斯加背景的学术和社会贡献。最重要的是，这个项目是由一个承诺，以证明人类学对解决健康和社会福祉问题的效用驱动的。在与阿拉斯加土著组织进行的初步研究中，获得清洁水和充足电力的问题成为一个主要关切。调查员采用参与式方法组织研究，为那些寻求解决使用公用事业问题的行为者和机构提供感兴趣的数据。这些数据将包括关于能源、自来水和下水道供应不足如何影响与健康和卫生有关的活动的文件。这些信息将有助于环境卫生专业人员应对水资源短缺和系统故障，并有助于决策者了解政策对健康的影响。其次，作为西北北极自治市的重要医学民族志，这项研究有助于两个领域，在阿拉斯加人类学文献中代表性不足。此外，独特的是研究人员的应用到阿拉斯加的历史，政治和经济过程中确定的全球化，发展和其他国家的水资源短缺的文献。通过追踪阻碍获得水和基本公用事业的全球和地方进程，调查员将编写一份关于一个问题和一个区域的人种志，并通过个案研究对出现的问题进行深入分析。最后，该项目通过研究北极地区这些问题的独特交叉点和表现形式，为有关发展和水资源短缺的文献做出了贡献。通过这种方式，研究者将通过关注人类学中不常见的其他基本公用事业来拓宽人类学对水资源短缺的理解。

Doctoral Dissertation Research: Lights Out for Native Alaska? Power, Water, Sanitation, and Health in the Northwest Arctic BoroughWith its abundance of lakes and rivers, Alaska is not a region that one would associate with water scarcity. However, rising energy prices and extreme cold are increasingly creating situations where rural villages do not have access to sufficient clean water for both drinking and domestic uses. This project investigates the daily experiences of individuals and households in the Northwest Arctic Borough (NWAB) living with contrived water scarcity, defined as the insufficiency of water for hygiene as well as drinking due to structural inequalities such as poverty. This situation threatens to reverse decades of public health accomplishments that reduced Alaska Native morbidity and mortality from infectious disease. Using ethnographic interviews, participant observation, and archival research, the investigator will 1) examine the historical, political, and economic factors that combine to hinder village governments' ability to meet the basic needs of their populations; 2) explore the effects of the loss of electricity, sewer, and water systems on communities, families, and individuals, both materially and socially; 3) investigate local and bureaucratic responses to inadequate necessary utilities and to changes in related policies. The ethnographic project uses the theoretical perspective of critical medical anthropology to investigate how these conditions are both mediated by and productive of culture, social relations, health, and wellbeing. Throughout, the investigator will examine the ways individuals employ cultural constructions to understand water, health, poverty, and what it means to be Alaska Native today.This research makes several academic and societal contributions that are relevant beyond the context of Alaska. Most importantly, this project is driven by a commitment to demonstrate the utility of anthropology toward solving problems of health and social wellbeing. In preliminary research with Alaska Native organizations, the problem of access to clean water and sufficient electricity emerged as a dominant concern. The investigator uses a participatory approach to structure the research to provide data of interest to those actors and agencies that are seeking solutions to the problem of accessing utilities. Such data will include documentation of how insufficient access to energy, and piped water and sewer affects activities related to health and hygiene. This information will be useful to environmental health professionals when responding to water shortages and system failures, and to policy makers who desire clear examples of the effects of policy on health. Second, as a critical medical ethnography of the Northwest Arctic Borough, this research contributes to two areas that are underrepresented in anthropological literature on Alaska. Also unique is the researcher's application to the Alaskan context of the historical, political, and economic processes identified in the literatures on globalization, development, and water scarcity in other nations. By tracing the global and local processes that hinder access to water and basic utilities, the investigator will produce an ethnography of both a problem and of a region, with case studies to provide in-depth analysis of the issues that emerge. Finally, this project contributes to literature on development and water scarcity by examining the unique intersections and manifestations of these issues in the Arctic. In this way, the researcher will broaden anthropological understandings of water scarcity by including a focus on other basic utilities not often seen in anthropology.