Doctoral Dissertation Research: DEW Line Passage Project

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

This project supports the dissertation research of graduate student Stacey Fritz on the militarization of Alaska and the western Canadian Arctic through the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line). Fritz has an innovative logistical plan, she will approach communities via "low impact" transportation, by canoe, snow machine, and hiking; in this way she hopes to gain entre into a number of communities in a locally contextualized way. The interdisciplinary research project combines ethnography, ethnohistory, and environmental sciences to examine the social, political, cultural and economic impacts of the DEW line in the north.