Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Self-Determination, Sustainability, and Wellbeing in an Alaska Native Community

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

Paragraph 1 Self-determining acts are autonomous acts for living a healthy life that can be practiced at the individual and community level in support of one's health and wellbeing. Research shows that a lack of self-determination, either at the community level or the individual level, can negatively affect one's health and well-being, which includes educational and economic achievement, as well as the long-term sustainability of social and cultural systems. This Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant project collaborates with an Alaska Native community to explore how Tribal members and nontribal members use self-determination, either individually or as a group, to achieve sustainability and wellbeing. A deeper understanding of the relationship between self-determination and wellbeing among Alaska Native peoples has the potential to provide insights into the health and wellbeing of other Indigenous Tribes and minority groups in the United States. This information could be critical to national interests by informing better education, health, and economic policies leading to the health and wellbeing of all people in the nation. Paragraph 2 This project uses the method of ethnographic futures research to conduct interviews about the future as envisioned by community members in South Central Alaska. The interviewee talks about their optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely futures, ultimately explaining how to get to the most optimistic future. Working with an Alaska Native community, focus groups and a community meeting will be conducted following the interviews to talk about the ideas identified in the interview optimistic scenarios and how to achieve those ideas. The analysis of this data has the potential to demonstrate what Tribal and nontribal members think the Tribe can do to improve sustainability and wellbeing, and how to achieve those goals. The data has the potential to inform others, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, by demonstrating how utilizing futures research can engage community members in self-determining acts through planning, and potentially making changes, for better outcomes in the future. 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.