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

博士论文研究：阿拉斯加本土熄灯？北极西北行政区的电力、水、卫生和健康阿拉斯加拥有丰富的湖泊和河流，人们不会把它与缺水联系在一起。然而，不断上涨的能源价格和极端寒冷日益造成农村无法获得足够的饮用水和家庭用水的情况。该项目调查了西北北极区（NWAB）生活在人为缺水环境中的个人和家庭的日常经历，人为缺水的定义是由于贫困等结构性不平等导致的卫生用水和饮用水不足。这种情况有可能扭转数十年来在公共卫生方面取得的成就，这些成就降低了阿拉斯加土著传染病的发病率和死亡率。通过民族志访谈、参与性观察和档案研究，研究者将1)考察历史、政治和经济因素，这些因素结合起来阻碍了村庄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)调查当地和官僚机构对必要设施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研究这些条件是如何被文化、社会关系、健康和福祉所介导和产生的。在整个过程中，研究者将研究个人使用文化结构来理解水、健康、贫困以及今天作为阿拉斯加原住民的意义的方式。这项研究做出了一些学术和社会贡献，这些贡献超出了阿拉斯加的背景。最重要的是，这个项目是由一个承诺驱动的，证明人类学在解决健康和社会福利问题上的效用。在与阿拉斯加土著组织的初步研究中，获得清洁水和充足电力的问题成为主要关注的问题。研究者使用一种参与式的方法来构建研究，为那些正在寻求解决公用事业问题的参与者和机构提供感兴趣的数据。这类数据将包括文件，说明能源、管道供水和下水道供应不足如何影响与健康和卫生有关的活动。这些信息将对环境卫生专业人员在应对水资源短缺和系统故障时，以及对希望看到政策对健康影响的明确例子的决策者有用。其次，作为西北北极自治市镇的重要医学人种志，本研究对阿拉斯加人类学文献中代表性不足的两个领域做出了贡献。同样独特的是，研究人员将全球化、发展和其他国家水资源短缺的文献中确定的历史、政治和经济过程应用于阿拉斯加的背景。通过追踪阻碍获得水和基本公用事业的全球和地方进程，调查人员将编制一个问题和一个区域的民族志，并通过案例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发展和水资源短缺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贡献。通过这种方式，研究人员将通过关注人类学中不常见的其他基本公用事业来扩大对水资源短缺的人类学理解。

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.