Youth creating sustainable communities in rural Alaska

Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2012In this thesis I discuss the ability of the people of Igiugig to define their strengths and vulnerabilities as a village, and their ability to create innovative solutions in their conscious efforts to become a more sustainable village now and in the future. I argue that this process provides the village of Igiugig with a high degree of self-determination and increases its ability to move into the future on its own terms rather than terms defined solely by world politics and economics. A key component of Igiugig's process of becoming more sustainable is the accommodation and empowerment of its youth. The village makes an active effort to instill a feeling of belonging in its youth and encourages the young people to take an active part in the shaping of the village. The youth, categorized in this thesis as residents from age fourteen to thirty-one, make up roughly one third of the population in Igiugig and they contribute with a diverse set of resources that combined greatly enhances the strength of the community. Although all residents play an important part in Igiugig's sustainability efforts, it is this group of young people that in many ways is leading the development of the community. In order to accommodate the youth in this way and enable them to take on leadership the village has had to open up to change and compromise. While this has come with certain challenges, it has also to some degree strengthened the village by increasing diversity and thereby the ability to respond to change without jeopardizing the quality of life of the people living there. With this thesis I attempt to show the strengths of a rural Alaskan community and explore the idea that there is tremendous potential for creating innovative and healthy solutions to the problems faced by many rural villages, in Alaska and elsewhere. I also emphasize the great need for open communication about values and goals within a community, and the equally important need for intergenerational collaboration and acceptance. Furthermore, I argue that state and federal policy can both aid and hinder this positive change, and that rural villages need to be shown the trust and help needed for them to become more sustainable

Decolonizing transformations through ‘right relations’

Climate change has been conceptualized as a form and a product of colonization. In this perspective, it becomes important to base climate change adaptation and transformation efforts on decolonizing practices and imaginaries. A central aspect of decolonization is contained in the Indigenous conceptualization of relationality. Exploring how decolonization and relationality might form the foundation for transformations research, we engage with the concept of ‘right relations’. In the context of this inquiry, we take ‘right relations’ to mean an obligation to live up to the responsibilities involved when taking part in a relationship—be it to other humans, other species, the land or the climate. We begin the paper by bringing together the literature on climate change adaptation, transformation and decolonization to show their interconnections and emphasize the need to engage with all three when talking about sustainability. Second, we invoke the idea of ‘right relations’ to address how non-Indigenous transformation researchers can further the process of decolonization as part of their research. Third, we offer insights from our own research experience with narrative practices to help exemplify how transformation researchers in all disciplines might embody ‘right relations’ centered around four characteristics: listening deeply, self-reflexivity, creating space and being in action. Embodying ‘right relations’ is a continuous process of becoming with no end point, and we do not wish to suggest that we hold the answers. Instead, we reflect on our role in this process and hope for these words to open a dialogue about how we might move towards a ‘decolonized humanity’. We suggest that willingness to be affected and altered by the process of reciprocal collaborations is key to imagining decolonial ways of being and that this in turn can be a powerful manner of generating equitable and sustainable transformations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

V Санкт-Петербургский венозный форум. Диагностика и лечение острых венозных тромбозов и хронической венозной недостаточности (С3-С6) (г. Санкт-Петербург, 7 декабря 2012 г.)

ТРОМБОЗ ВЕНОЗНЫЙВЕНОЗНАЯ НЕДОСТАТОЧНОСТ

Individual and collective leadership for deliberate transformations: Insights from Indigenous leadership

Deliberately transforming society toward equitable and sustainable futures requires leadership. But what kind of leadership? While the dominant understanding of leadership often centers on the individual, the concept of collective leadership is receiving increased attention. Yet, the relationship between individual and collective leadership remains elusive and has been given limited attention in the transformation literature. In this study, I explore how leadership is understood and enacted in an Alaska Native community engaged in transforming community systems toward enhanced sustainability. I draw on Indigenous leadership research, organized through four interrelated analytical lenses: the individual leader, leadership through culture, leadership through process, and leadership through integration. I find that leadership in the community can be seen as something simultaneously individual and collective and argue that an Indigenous relational ontology makes it possible to imagine leadership as an “individual-collective simultaneity.” In the discussion, I highlight the connections to emerging theories and approaches within “mainstream” leadership research, pointing to the potential for bridging disciplines and paradigms. For leadership and transformation researchers to engage in this bridging work, we must reflect on and reconsider our assumptions as to what agency for transformation is, with important implications for how we work to support transformations. While “ontological bridge building” creates tensions, it is through holding and working through these creative tensions that we can start to see pathways toward equitable and sustainable futures

Leaving, staying or belonging: exploring the relationship between formal education, youth mobility and community resilience in rural Alaska

Rural Alaskan youth are encouraged to pursue higher education in order to enhance individual and community resilience. However, the dwindling number of youth that return to their home communities after attending post-secondary education is a concern. In the context of Native communities, some argue that a university degree has little value and prevents the youth from returning. At face value, this presents a dilemma in which rural Alaska Native youth must choose between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ ways of life – between staying or leaving. However, this process is more complex than can be understood from these dichotomies. This paper presents research done with an Alaska Native community (2011–2012), focusing on the role of youth in community resilience. Rather than the question of staying or leaving, maintaining a connection to the community is the main driver of youth mobility. The village does not try to control the pathways of its youth but works to instill a feeling of belonging in the youth by involving them in community planning and guaranteeing jobs and housing. By actively shaping its institutions and linking individual ambition with community well-being, the community is able to transform otherwise challenging conditions into sources of empowerment and resilience

The role of flexibility in enabling transformational social change: perspectives from an Indigenous community using Q-methodology

What makes some communities more resilient and transformative than others? This paper explores the hypothesis that the flexibility of perspectives is central to enable the kind of changes called for by current and future environmental and socio-economic challenges. The paper reports on findings from a Q-study conducted with the Indigenous community of Igiugig, Alaska, focusing on perceptions of social change. The study reveals three main narratives concerning drivers of social change, focusing on the role of individuals, the importance of cultural values, and community visioning. The findings from the Q study point to the importance of flexibility, understood as the capacity to take different perspectives, in enabling deliberate action in situations where the correct path to take is often contested. This kind of flexibility, grounded in an Indigenous worldview, is seen to contribute to community resilience through supporting cultural cohesion, collective leadership and enacting alternatives in the here and now. Strong community narratives that allow for individual interpretation is seen as important and highlights the interrelatedness between the individual and the collective and the role of collective agency. Drawing on the critiques of the concept of resilience in an Indigenous context, the paper further points to the need for transformational change occurring at multiple scales and extends a call for flexibility to be fostered among researchers and practitioners alike. The lessons from this community have implications for understandings of community resilience and agency in social-ecological systems and the potential for transformations towards sustainability

How Relations Come to Matter: A Study of the Role of Relations for Deliberate Transformations in an Alaska Native Community

This dissertation is about how relations come to matter for deliberate transformations toward sustainability. More specifically, it is about transformative change in a community context and how certain relations and perceptions of relations help and hinder this work. The dissertation presents a transdisciplinary study situated within transformations research and anchored in human geography and Indigenous studies. It responds to the growing concern that while the need for transformative change is becoming increasingly evident, it is less clear how to move society towards sustainability in ways that are both equitable and just. Grounded in ‘the relational turn’ within the humanities and social sciences, the research takes a ‘deep’ relational approach to the study of relations for deliberate transformations, engaging with Indigenous and posthumanist ontologies that center on the potentials and responsibilities inherent in a world of relations

Can the sustainable development goals harness the means and the manner of transformation?

The 17 sustainable development goals and their 169 targets comprise a comprehensive list of prerequisites for human and planetary well-being, but they also implicitly invoke many of the very trade-offs, synergies, and parallelisms that drive global crises. Decision-makers are familiar with these internal conflicts, and there is no shortage of frameworks, blueprints, and roadmaps to accelerate sustainability. However, thus far, inevitable trade-offs among competing priorities for sustainability are not catalyzing the types of transformations called for, indeed, demanded, by the SDGs. Habitual technocratic approaches, which the SDG lend themselves to, will report on indicators and targets, but will not adequately represent the ambitions of the goals themselves. Addressing these habitual tendencies, this paper therefore considers the inner dimensions of transformation, including emotions and meaning-making. Music offers a rich source of metaphor to reimagine interconnections and communicates affectively the feelings and embodied dimensions of intellectual thought and creativity. We draw on Western musical composition and history to offer insights on an intellectual path-dependency leading up to the current disembodied indicator-based management and regulation of global environmental and societal crises, and on potential alternatives. As metaphors, we consider what the SDGs might ‘sound like’ as either 12-tone, contrapuntal, or improvisational expression. We suggest that for the SDGs to release their transformative potential, ‘sustainability improvisers’ with a handle on both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of transformation are needed: harnessed with deep understanding of SDG indicators and targets, but with an ability to listen deeply and invite others to co-create transformative pathways