Subsistence and Outmigration: Connecting Intergenerational Dialogues between Alaska Native Elders and Youth

在过去的一个世纪里，阿拉斯加和北极地区的土著居民经历了重大的社会经济、环境和文化变化。近几十年来的各种发展，包括环境变化和人口流动，加速了农村土著人民生活环境的不断变化。虽然这些变化无疑影响到所有土著人民的生活和生计，但它们因地理和文化而有不同的经历，并受到代际和经济因素的影响。这些发展的一些比较明显的影响是生计参与和生产的变化以及土著青年和青壮年从其家乡社区向外迁移。更复杂的是，这种现象是在更广泛的环境变化背景下发生的，这种变化正在影响北极农村土著社区的可持续性。该研究项目旨在从阿拉斯加两个不同地区（育空-库斯科夫金三角洲的Yup'ik族和育空平原的Gwich'in族）的跨代阿拉斯加原住民的角度，更好地理解这些复杂过程的后果。考虑到阿拉斯加原住民是一个多元化的社区，每个文化群体都拥有自己独特的文化、语言、历史和经济资源基础，这两个不同的地理区域和文化群体使研究小组能够捕捉到阿拉斯加历史和当代的一些复杂性。具体来说，调查人员将研究老年人和年轻人面临的一系列经历，以及他们如何理解他们的过去以及农村生活和生计的当代变化。语言、传统和亲属关系的问题是探索这种动态的关键方面。研究人员将结合参与观察、社区焦点小组和个人访谈的方法，以捕捉作为研究重点的四个社区中每一个社区的生存和外移的中心问题和比较理解。这项研究将导致从他们自己的角度广泛深入地了解阿拉斯加农村原住民今天面临的问题。老年人和青年之间的合作将有助于社区讨论每个族裔和生态地区所面临的社会、文化、政治和经济问题，突出地方一级政策和做法的相同和不同之处。资助工作的一个重要组成部分是让土著学生参与尖端研究，包括人类学和视听方法方面的培训。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Over the past century, Indigenous populations of Alaska and the circumpolar North have experienced major socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural changes. Various developments in recent decades, including environmental shifts and demographic flux, have accelerated the ongoing transformation of the circumstances of rural Indigenous people's lives. While these changes have undoubtedly impacted the lives and livelihoods of all Native peoples, they are experienced differently by geography and culture, and influenced by generational and economic factors. Some of the more visible impacts of these developments are changes in subsistence participation and production and the out-migration of Indigenous youth and young adults from their home communities. To compound matters, such phenomena are occurring within a broader context of environmental change that is impacting the sustainability of rural Native communities in the Arctic.The research project seeks to better understand the consequences of these complex processes from the perspective of Alaska Native people across generations in two different regions of Alaska, the Yup'ik of the Yukon-Kuskowkim Delta and the Gwich'in of the Yukon Flats. The two distinct geographical areas and cultural groups allow the research team to capture some of the historical and contemporary complexity of Alaska, given that Alaska Natives are a diverse community with each cultural group possessing its own unique culture, language, history, and economic resource base. Specifically, the investigators will study the range of experiences that both elders and youth face and how they make sense of their past as well as the contemporary shifts in rural lives and livelihoods. Issues of language, tradition, and kinship ties are crucial facets for exploring such dynamics. The researchers will incorporate methods of participant observation, community-based focus groups and individual interviews to capture the central issues and comparative understandings relating to subsistence and out-migration in each of the four communities that are the focus of the study. The research will result in a broad in-depth understanding of issues facing rural Alaska Natives today from their own perspectives. The collaboration between elders and youth will contribute to community discussions on the social, cultural, political and economic issues that each ethnic and ecological area faces, highlighting both the convergences and divergences of policies and practices at the local level. A substantial component of the grant work involves including Native students in cutting-edge research, including training in anthropological and audio-visual methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.