Political ecology and decolonial research: co-production with the Iñupiat in Utqiaġvik

Abstract

Environmental social science research designs have shifted over the past several decades to include an increased commitment to multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary team-based work that have had dual but complementary foci. These address power and equity in the substantive aspects of research, and also to adopt more engaged forms of practice, including decolonial approaches. The fields of political ecology, human geography, and environmental anthropology have been especially open to converge with indigenous scholarship, particularly decolonial and settler colonial theories and research designs, within dominant human-environmental social science paradigms. Scholars at the forefront of this dialogue highlight the ontological (ways of knowing), epistemological (how we know), and institutional (institutions of higher education) transformations that need to occur in order for this to take place. In this article we contribute to this literature in two ways. First, we highlight the synergies between political ecology and decolonial scholarship, particularly focusing on the power dynamics in research programs and historical legacies of human-environmental relationships, including those of researchers. Second, we explore how decolonial research pushes political ecologists and other environmental social scientists to not only consider adopting international and local standards of working with, by and for Indigenous Peoples within research programs but how this work ultimately extends to research and education within their home institutions and organizations. Through integrating decolonized research practices in the environmental social sciences, we argue that synthesizing multiple knowledge practices and transforming institutional structures will enhance team-based environmental social science work to improve collaboration with Indigenous scientists, subsistence practitioners, agency representatives, and sovereign members of Indigenous communities.Keywords: Alaska; collaboration; co-production; decolonial; Indigenous Knowledges; Iñupiaq Peoples

Sustainability, resilience, adaptation, and transformation: tensions and plural approaches

“…Instead, community members in this case advocate for greater awareness of the epistemological and political tensions inherent in combining these paradigms and frameworks with indigenous knowledge systems, questioning sustainability and resilience for whom and at what scale, and changing research and, relatedly, policy approaches to be more inclusive and locally controlled so sustainability goals are not enacted at the expense of the local community. Equally as important in determining desirable futures, is recognizing historical injustices that continue to have long standing effects and legacies today thus suggesting that a decolonizing approach to the paradigms and concepts to sustainability, resilience, adaptation, and transformation is necessary (Zanotti et al 2020).…”

“…In order to accommodate for leadership and strength, the two attributes the community wished to be addressed, we adopted a framework that suggests analyzing resilience requires an examination of the following factors: living with uncertainty, nurturing diversity, using different kinds of knowledge for learning, and creating opportunities for selforganization (Berkes 2007(Berkes , 2017. The goal was to examine and identify the underrepresented social and cultural factors associated with each of these four interrelated processes, acknowledge diverse knowledge systems and worldviews, and draw attention to people in power relationships (see Zanotti et al 2020).…”

The strategy of shifting cultivators in West Kalimantan in adapting to the market economy: empirical evidence behind gaps in interdisciplinary communication

“…The cultural ecology perspective has contributed to the viewpoint that shifting cultivation is a material response to meeting livelihood needs, as well as the implementation of a subsistence economic strategy that evolves with local culture, knowledge, and technology (Dove 2015;Geertz 2016;McCullough 2019;Scott 1976). The political ecology perspective places greater attention on structural, multiscale issues including policy effects and politics, historical change, social networks and gender, injustices and vulnerability, economic-political pressures, and concerns over climate change issues (Elmhirst et al 2017;Friedmann 2015;Li 2015;Mathevet et al 2015;Ndamani and Watanabe 2015;Olsson and Jerneck 2010;Peluso 1992Peluso , 2005Ring 2020;Sima et al 2015;Thung 2018;Toumbourou and Dressler 2020;Willow and Wylie 2014;Zanotti et al 2020;Zimmerer and Bassett 2003). A synergy of the two perspectives is crucial in order to reestablish an integrated understanding on the correlation between economic political struggle for environmental resources, the cultural meanings attached to an environment, and the changing dynamics of ecology-environment (Benjaminsen and Svarstad 2019;Nygren and Rikoon 2008;Peterson 2000;Quandt 2016).…”

“…The cultural core element includes organization of livelihoods, the economic system, social organization, and technology at community level (Dove 2015;Geertz 2016;McCullough 2019;Siahaya et al 2016). 12 Political ecologists ___________________________________________________________________________________ recognize that agrarian societies are laden with the effects of politics, the expression of power by elites and corporate actors, and injustices (Friedmann 2015;Li 2015;Mathevet et al 2015;Peluso 2005;Ring 2020;Toumbourou and Dressler 2020;Willow and Wylie 2014;Zanotti et al 2020;Zimmerer and Bassett 2003). A point of convergence, linking the conceptual interests of cultural and political ecology, is to interrogate how shifting cultivation as a strategy for ecological-economic adaptation operates, but it is constantly affected by national policies, global-national politico-economic interests, rights to natural resources, and issues of global climate change (Ndamani and Watanabe 2015;Sima et al 2015;Thaler and Anandi 2017;Thung 2018).…”

The political ontology of protected area co-management: worlding and nature perceptions among stakeholders

“…Building on Nancy Fraser's work, environmental justice literature has emphasized the importance of the tripartite typology of concernsrecognition, procedure and distribution -as the main vectors of social inclusion in environmental protection (Schlosberg, 2013). In conservation science, cultural recognition has become an essential condition for valorizing local conservation knowledge and supporting collaboration between forest users and conservationists (Berkes, 2012;Zanotti et al, 2020). However, cultural recognition has often been limited to 'respect for culture' within the same modern paradigm (Martin et al, 2016).…”