Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic: Inuit, Saami and the Indigenous Peoples of Chukotka (SLICA)

Arctic scientists wrote, in the 1998 Opportunities in Arctic Research: Final Report for the U.S. National Science Foundation, "For the last few decades the scientific community has expressed concern about the vulnerability of the Arctic and its residents to environmental, social, and economic changes .... [Recent] research results show that arctic climate and ecosystems are indeed changing substantially with impacts on people living in and outside the Arctic." The scientists listed as the first key question, "How are the rapid social, political, economic and environmental changes occurring in the Arctic today affecting the people there? ... Delegates to the 1998 Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) passed a resolution supporting an international survey of living conditions in the Arctic. The resolution noted, "Rapid social change characterises all indigenous peoples of the Arctic .... There is a need to document and compare the present state of living conditions and the development among the indigenous peoples of the Arctic." This essay presents a comparative study of living conditions among the Inuit and Saami peoples of the United States, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland and the indigenous peoples of the Kola and Chukotka Peninsulas in Russia. The main scientific institutions behind SLICA are Statistics Greenland; the Department of Political Science, University of Tromsø, Norway; the Centre for Research in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, University of Stockholm, Sweden; the Arctic Centre, University of Lappland, Finland; the Barents Centre for Social Research, the Kola Peninsula, Russia; the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Moscow, Russia; the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska, Anchorage, U.S.A.; and the Groupe d'études inuit et circumpolaires (GÉTIC) of Laval University, Quebec City, Canada. The main indigenous organizations working with SLICA are ICC, the Saami Council and the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North. The project has six major objectives: (1) to develop a new research design for comparative investigations of the living conditions of the Inuit and Saami populations in the Arctic, which will include drawing up of a battery of nominal and operationalized indicators of living conditions based on earlier theoretical literature, consultations with aboriginal organizations, and public hearings; (2) to make a dynamic social analysis of the causal relations between different individual resources and between individual well-being and different political, economic, cultural, and technological settings; (3) to map the living conditions among the Inuit, Saami, and other indigenous peoples in Greenland, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, the Kola and Chukotka Peninsulas in Russia, Alaska, and the Northwest and Nunavut Territories, Nunavik, and Labrador in northern Canada. The mapping will facilitate intra- and international comparisons of the level of the living conditions in a number of dimensions; (4) to improve the basis for decision making in relation to policy planning and implementation; (5) to establish an interdisciplinary network of researchers and research institutions engaged in studying Arctic living conditions; and (6) to educate and involve postdocs, PhD candidates, and undergraduates under the SLICA project. ..

Design and methods in a survey of living conditions in the Arctic–the SLiCA study

Objectives: The main objective of this study is to describe the methods and design of the survey of living conditions in the Arctic (SLiCA), relevant participation rates and the distribution of participants, as applicable to the survey data in Alaska, Greenland and Norway. This article briefly addresses possible selection bias in the data and also the ways to tackle it in future studies. Study design: Population-based cross-sectional survey. Methods: Indigenous individuals aged 16 years and older, living in Greenland, Alaska and in traditional settlement areas in Norway, were invited to participate. Random sampling methods were applied in Alaska and Greenland, while non-probability sampling methods were applied in Norway. Data were collected in 3 periods: in Alaska, from January 2002 to February 2003; in Greenland, from December 2003 to August 2006; and in Norway, in 2003 and from June 2006 to June 2008. The principal method in SLiCA was standardised face-to-face interviews using a questionnaire. Results: A total of 663, 1,197 and 445 individuals were interviewed in Alaska, Greenland and Norway, respectively. Very high overall participation rates of 83% were obtained in Greenland and Alaska, while a more conventional rate of 57% was achieved in Norway. A predominance of female respondents was obtained in Alaska. Overall, the Sami cohort is older than the cohorts from Greenland and Alaska. Conclusions: Preliminary assessments suggest that selection bias in the Sami sample is plausible but not a major threat. Few or no threats to validity are detected in the data from Alaska and Greenland. Despite different sampling and recruitment methods, and sociocultural differences, a unique database has been generated, which shall be used to explore relationships between health and other living conditions variables

Survey of Living Conditions In The Arctic: What Did We Learn?

In countries around the Arctic, tens of thousands of Iñupiat, Inuit, and other indigenous peoples live in small, isolated communities where jobs are scarce, incomes are low, and life is not easy. Yet many—including large majorities in Canada, Northern Alaska, and Greenland—are satisfied with life in their communities. That was the puzzle researchers from Statistics Greenland faced in 1994, when they studied living conditions and found that common measures of well-being—like levels of employment—didn’t explain why so many of Greenland’s Inuit chose to stay in their communities. About 7,250 Inuit, Iñupiat, and other indigenous peoples were interviewed in Greenland, Northern Alaska, the Chukotka region of Russia, and the Inuit settlement areas of Canada. The Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) conducted the survey in Alaska. This publication describes the survey and introduces the wealth of new information now available on the lives of the Arctic’s first people, measured in ways they themselves chose. Also printed in Valerie Moller, Denis Huschka and Alex Michalos (eds). Barometers of Quality of Life Around the Globe: How Are We Doing? New York: Springer Verlag, 107-134.National Science Foundation; Nordic Council of Ministers; Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; Greenland Home Rule Government; Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland; Barents Secretariat; Nordic Arctic Research Programme; Danish Research Council for the Social Sciences; Swedish Research Council for the Social Sciences; Norway Department of Municipalities; Joint Committee on Research Councils for Nordic Countries; and Statistics Canada