Dissertation Research: Social Networks and Adaptive Strategies of Inupiaq Households

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

This is a Dissertation Research proposal to do research on Inupiaq social organization in Northwest Alaska by examining how individuals, families and communities adapt with rapid environmental, social, and economic change. Utilizing ethnographic fieldwork methods, both qualitative and quantitative, the research concentrates on family organization as one of the key elements of the dynamics of Inupiat adaptation to contemporary life in rural Alaska. In addition, this project will utilize the data from the NSF funded "Social Transitions of the North" project, that has languished in storage following the death of its PIs in a tragic boat accident in Chukotka, Russia in 1994. The status of the research data has been in limbo until recently when the PIs' widows gave the research records to the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). This year, 2003, UAA developed protocols for the use of the STN data, opening it up for use by researchers.