Community Adaptations and Knowledge Sharing in Alaska and Siberia: Utilizing Indigenous Research Methods

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Colonialism and environmental change threaten the overall survival of Indigenous Arctic people. They must continually innovate and adopt new strategies for social persistence, adaptation and transformation. The goal of the Community Adaptation project is to discover indigenous patterns of adaptive and resilient responses to critical situations through an exchange of knowledge between members of two arctic communities in Alaska and Siberia. The project aims to: 1) develop and implement a fieldwork course and knowledge exchange with indigenous youth, community members and leaders from Alaska and Siberia; 2) conduct two fieldwork exchanges in Alaska and Siberia with indigenous community collaborators; 3) develop a comparative model of social resilience and community sustainability that describes how diverse communities in the Arctic are coping, adapting, and transforming as a result of changing social and environmental conditions; and 4) establish an innovative methodology for engaging arctic indigenous community members in collaborative research. The study will be the first to engage indigenous community members from Alaska and Siberia in a collaborative exchange and discovery process as part of a research design utilizing innovative indigenous research methodologies. The study adds a critical new perspective to resilience theory that takes into account the transformative capacity of indigenous peoples and communities. The proposed study aims to impact the international indigenous and scientific communities by broadening the inclusion of underrepresented minorities in research, and more effectively engaging indigenous communities and peoples as part of research collaborations.