Inuit, Global Climate Change, and the Need for Arctic Social Science Policy Processes

Abstract The Inuit people are fortunate that our social structure and systems remained relatively intact up to modern times. Since 1977 much has changed, and the environment is still changing rapidly as new developments and national economic interests change. There are three areas of concern where we feel the need to bring in a new dimension of social science research to bridge a gap in arctic research policy processes: trans-boundary pollution, industrialization of the Arctic, and economic change. The re-evaluation of social sciences in the far north needs to be considered in relating to a group of hunter people interacting with mainstream societies and advanced to promote healthy living in a critical time of global climate change for the fishing peoples of the north and all societies affected. As we respond to change, this need for arctic social science policy and processes would influence a positive new social science framework with understandable social values. Introduction My Inupiaq Eskimo name is Aniqsuaq. I was born in Barrow, Alaska, but I was raised at Iviksuk about 30 miles south of Barrow in a little community of five sod homes among 18 people. I was the youngest of the community who lived in the old Inupiaq way of life, living off the land. We wore traditional fur clothing and traveled by dog team. In 1954 we walked to Barrow to move there permanently, because the government required us to attend school. I still recall the first English words I ever heard. Who is your name?” my teacher asked. That was my introduction to the modern world.
Inuit circumpolar peoples We Inuit are an international community sharing a common language, culture, and a common homeland along the arctic coasts of Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Although not a nation-state, as a people, we do constitute a nation. As we Inuit gathered for the first time in Barrow in 1977, the Mayor of the North Slope Borough, Eben Hopson, commented in his address, “Our language contains the memory of four thousand years of human survival through conservation and good management of our arctic wealth.” That year, we began the Inuit Circumpolar Council to address the modernization of our arctic environment and its impact on our cultures, economies, and other human dimensions of our arctic systems of survival as a hunter-fisher society. We are fortunate that our social structure and systems remained relatively intact up to modern times. Since 1977 much has changed and the environment is still changing rapidly as new developments and national economic interests change. I am reminded of an elderly woman, at our 1980 Inuit Circumpolar Conference in Greenland, as she made a comment that put the Inuit global perspective into focus when she said, “Our land is so big, and yet, it is so small.” To thrive in our circumpolar homeland, Inuit have the vision to realize we must speak with a united voice on issues of common concern and combine our energies and talents toward protecting and promoting our way of life. Because we are hunting societies who use the arctic marine environment to cull food from the bounty of the sea, we consider the Arctic Ocean as our garden around which our social systems and culture are based. In remote villages our hunting and fishing traditions remain strong. We still hunt seals, walrus, whales, beluga, and the polar bear, and fish for arctic char and other arctic fishes from the land and sea. Need for social science involvement The Arctic is an environment that has remained unmolested until the 20th century. However, our social relationship with the outside world is now fraught with unresolved issues that stem from introduction of a modern world and social interactions with new peoples and their cultures. Our social systems are now impacted with new problems and few solutions to resolve the need for modernization of social sciences for the arctic people. Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the examination and the critique of society and culture, by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Critical_theory).
bring in a new dimension of social science research that hopefully will bridge a missing gap in arctic research policy processes. They are trans-boundary pollution, industrialization of the Arctic, and economic change that impact arctic societies. My point is that there is an important and growing need for the incorporation of social science and policy processes to address human environmental relationships in the far north, in the continuing modernization of our arctic communities and societies. Trans-boundary pollution Most people think of the Arctic as one of the last great unspoiled environments on earth. As science advanced to study climate change in the Arctic, we now know our citizens and denizens are highly contaminated. Arctic researchers have discovered that arctic people and animals carry chemicals that in subtle ways may injure the health of people and predators alike. Yet we Inuit and other fishing peoples of the North continue to depend on the arctic food chain for sustenance. The trans-boundary contaminants that our food resources carry may be able to mutate genes, damage cells, and possibly cause cancer among people and animals alike. As we hunt and fish for food we feel somewhat helpless because we know it is an unseen crisis getting worst over time. Yet my good friend from Qaanaaq in Greenland, Uusaqqaq Qujaukitsoq, whom I met on the Monzino Polar Expedition in 1972, would say “peqqinnartoq,” it is healthy food. And so it is as compared to store bought, factory processed foods from the south we now purchase in local markets. Our diets of seal, narwhale, walrus, and polar bear are more fitting to our arctic environment, compared to farm raised cows, pigs, and chickens of the south. It is also much cheaper to rely on our own nutritionally balanced arctic natural resources to maintain a healthy body for arctic survival. The shock by modern scientists to find transboundary pollutants within our bodies in the Arctic may have initially raised alarm. “Stop eating these foods!” was the outcry. But what about the socio-cultural impacts of switching from a hunter’s diet of arctic animals to farm-raised diets that may have chemicals that cause obesity and diabetes among other illnesses foreign to arctic residents? What I describe here opens the need for application of social sciences and policy development in a new way. I don’t mean anthropology—we already have plenty of that going on, but other branches of social research focusing on social processes in microeconomics, and in education based on the struggles and triumphs of daily life of arctic residents. And it is important to address law from the socio-cultural context, so we may understand the moral and ethical aspects of legal policy applied from distance places to the north. New social science research and processes may address innovative environmental relationships to bring about a balance of the common wealth for the northern and southern lex in a critical time of global climate change affecting all arctic residents, especially the fishing peoples of the north.