The Praxis of Indigenism and Alaska Native Timber Politics

This article addresses the most recent discourse on indigenism in Southeast Alaska that has emerged around the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 and its subsequent revisions. It argues that one must consider the "politics of recognition" in Southeast Alaska in terms of the larger political dynamics that shape state and industry access to resources, especially commercially valuable stands of timber. In Southeast Alaska, recognition of Native claims has allowed industrial timber and pulp producers to, in effect, circumvent environmental laws aimed at curbing production, thus allowing them to continue devastating the living conditions of many Natives. Among the local responses to the manipulation of Native claims and identity, the all–Native, radical Christian churches that have taken a strong stance against the recent, corporate–sponsored, cultural revitalization are unique in their resistance to indigenist politics. [Keywords: indigenism, Alaska Natives, development, Pentecostalism]     

Religion and Social Structure in The Division of Labor

The article offers a thoroughgoing reinterpretation of The Division of Labor, focusing on the six-stage theory of sociocultural change that lies in the background of Durkheim's well-known contrast between the ideal types of mechanical and organic solidarity. Durkheim's characterization of each stage is described in terms of its structural-functional differentiation and religious unity. The Division's evolutionary theory, which underlies much of Durkheim's mature work, is criticized for its dated ethnographic evidence, and contrasted with alternative evolutionary proposals, including that of sociobiology.     

Sexual Division of Labor in Agriculture

Female agricultural contributions decline with agricultural intensification. We formulate and test a theory of the processes of agricultural intensification that explains a high proportion of the variance in female contributions to agriculture. Five variables show replicable effects across two or more regions of the world. These are number of dry months, importance of domesticated animals to subsistence, use of the plow, crop type, and population density. Of these, the first two are the most powerful predictors of female agricultural contributions, while population density has only very weak effects.
MICHAEL L. BURTON is Professor of Anthropology. School of Social Sciences. University of California. Irvine. CA 92717.
DOUGLAS R. WHITE is Professor of Anthropology. School of Social Sciences. University of California. Irvine.     

Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Alaska Native Ways of Knowing

Drawing on experiences across Fourth World contexts, with an emphasis on the Alaska context, this article seeks to extend our understandings of the learning processes within and at the intersection of diverse worldviews and knowledge systems. We outline the rationale for a comprehensive program of educational initiatives closely articulated with the emergence of a new generation of Indigenous scholars who seek to move the role of Indigenous knowledge and learning from the margins to the center of educational research, thereby confronting some of the most intractable and salient educational issues of our times.     

Native American Tattoos: Identity and Spirituality in Contemporary America

Influences from counterculture movements and tattooing traditions from around the world have transformed the North American tattoo experience. Consultants' narratives reveal a desire to align with a primal human essence, seen as somehow lost through the process of civilization. Images are intentionally chosen to seek connection with people considered to embody a simpler, truer form of human life; what scholars routinely refer to as the “primitive,” or the Other. In the cases under consideration, an effort is made to connect to a particular so-called primitive, that is, the American Indian. Thus, the current renaissance of tattoo as fine art provides an occasion to reconsider American fascination with “playing Indian” and all things Indian.     

The Effect of Conflicting Pressures on the Evolution of Division of Labor

Within nature, many groups exhibit division of labor. Individuals in these groups are under seemingly antagonistic pressures to perform the task most directly beneficial to themselves and to potentially perform a less desirable task to ensure the success of the group. Performing experiments to study how these pressures interact in an evolutionary context is challenging with organic systems because of long generation times and difficulties related to group propagation and fine-grained control of within-group and between-group pressures. Here, we use groups of digital organisms (i.e., self-replicating computer programs) to explore how populations respond to antagonistic multilevel selection pressures. Specifically, we impose a within-group pressure to perform a highly-rewarded role and a between-group pressure to perform a diverse suite of roles. Thus, individuals specializing on highly-rewarded roles will have a within-group advantage, but groups of such specialists have a between-group disadvantage. We find that digital groups could evolve to be either single-lineage or multi-lineage, depending on experimental parameters. These group compositions are reminiscent of different kinds of major evolutionary transitions that occur within nature, where either relatives divide labor (fraternal transitions) or multiple different organisms coordinate activities to form a higher-level individual (egalitarian transitions). Regardless of group composition, organisms embraced phenotypic plasticity as a means for genetically similar individuals to perform different roles. Additionally, in multi-lineage groups, organisms from lineages performing highly-rewarded roles also employed reproductive restraint to ensure successful coexistence with organisms from other lineages.     

Implications of Fire Policy on Native Land Use in the Yukon Flats, Alaska

Through a process of participatory mapping, this research assessed the impacts of the 1984 change in Alaska fire policy from one of exclusion to one of management on Native land use in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Findings suggest that while the change in policy has had little measurable effect on community land use the continued suppression of fire on Native owned lands is having a direct impact on the current availability of wildlife resources to the point of necessitating territorial expansion among Native resource users. However, given the complexity of human nature, the impacts associated with the 1984 policy change should not be reduced to a simplistic cause-and-effect relationship. Rather this analysis demonstrates the interaction as well as the contradiction that occur between policy, culture, and ecology as these factors together have come to influence Native land use.     

The Uses of "Inaccurate" Data: A Methodological Critique and Applications of Alaska Native Data

The ramifications of a current debate about informant accuracy are shown to extend well beyond informant accuracy per se, since they invite scrutiny of fundamental epistemological assumptions. Accuracy is analyzed as a complex concept that must be evaluated along several dimensions, suggesting that multiple standards of "accuracy" require multiple methods of data collection and interpretation known generally as triangulation. Alaska Native data collected by several disparate means are briefly analyzed in order to illustrate how triangulation works.     

It's been good, not drinking: Alaska Native narratives of lifetime sobriety

Alcohol abuse is closely connected with so much hurt and pain in northern communities that it had to be addressed in this session. Much of what is done in the way of prevention and treatment of alcohol abuse originates from outside indigenous cultures. However, many Native people have either remained sober or become sober without ever going into a formal treatment program. Ironically, until very recently, little research effort has gone into understanding the backgrounds and attitudes of this population. “The People Awakening Project,” a collaborative effort between a group of Alaska Natives interested in sobriety and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has changed that. Although the project is not finished, this presentation provides a clear sense of how the research is being conducted, what kinds of data are emerging from it, and what some of the preliminary results look like. Chase Hensel gave the original presentation in Quebec City. Svenne Haakenson and Gerry Mohatt, who are heavily involved in the project, join him in authoring this written version.     

Native Grass Cultivars for Multiple Revegetation Goals on a Proposed Mine Site in Southcentral Alaska

Native grasses may be used for multiple, sometimes conflicting, goals in revegetation projects. Woody plants are frequently desired for moose browse and timber in Alaska, but naturally occurring Calamagrostis canadensis (bluejoint reedgrass) hinders the establishment of these desired species. Seven grass cultivars of Alaskan origin were evaluated for their ability (1) to stabilize the soil, (2) to reduce regeneration of C. canadensis, (3) to allow openings for natural colonization, and (4) to permit establishment of desirable rooted cuttings. Cultivars tested are “Arctared” Festuca rubra (red fescue), “Alyeska”Arctagrostis latifolia (polar-grass), “Nugget”Poa pratensis (bluegrass) “Norcoast”Deschampsia beringensis (Bering hairgrass), “Nortran”Deschampsia caespitosa (tufted hairgrass), “Gruening” Poa alpina (alpine bluegrass), and “Sourdough” Calamagrostis canadensis. These were tested as single species and in multi-species mixtures, with two seeding rates of the multi-species mixture (0.5, 0.25 seeds/cm²). Experimental plots included unfertilized, unfertilized with rooted Salicaceae cuttings, and fertilized (350 kg/ha 20:20:10). A control plot was not seeded. After three growing seasons, Nortran D. caespitosa and Arctared F. rubra were the most successful cultivars. They provided 87% to 98% of the seeded-species cover for soil stabilization and suppressed C. canadensis on the fertilized subplots without reducing species diversity. Gruening Poa alpina was less than 3 cm tall, and it helped stabilize the site without interfering with woody plant establishment. Although cuttings were shorter under some seed treatments compared to the nonseeded control, heights of cuttings were not related to cover of seeded cultivars (r = 0.09, p > 0.55) but were positively correlated with total vascular plant cover (r= 0.61, p < 0.001).     

Fishing and the Sexual Division of Labor among the Meriam

Do men and women forage differently because they are cooperatively responding to children's requirements for care or because they are differentially sensitive to variance? In this article, I examine how care trade-offs and variance contribute to gender differences in fishing strategies among Torres Strait Islanders (Meriam). Women's fishing had lower failure rates, coefficients of variation, and frequencies of sharing than men's fishing. Men and women responded to trade-offs between mean and variance differently: Women spent less time on high mean–high variance activities, men less time on high mean–low variance activities. Although child-care trade-offs affected time allocation to different fishing activities among women, they did not affect differences in time allocation between the sexes. These results support previous work implicating variance and sharing frequency as important resource currencies shaping gender differences in subsistence decisions, and they offer challenges to a general model of the division of labor predicated on economic notions of specialization as increasing production efficiency.     

Sexual Division of Labor in African Agriculture: A Network Autocorrelation Analysis

A model of causes and consequences of sexual division of labor in agriculture is tested using a sample of African societies. Crop type and the presence or absence of slavery are shown to be effective predictors of the degree of female contribution to agricultural subsistence, and the degree of polygyny is shown to be affected by female agricultural contribution and the form of residence. Autocorrelation effects are found and are shown to be a consequence of Bantu societies having higher female participation in agriculture than would otherwise be expected. This effect is an example of one of the kinds of phenomena that anthropologists have referred to as Galton's problem . [sexual division of labor, cultural ecology, Galton's Problem, Africa]     

A Bioeconomic Approach to Marriage and the Sexual Division of Labor

Children may be viewed as public goods whereby both parents receive equal genetic benefits yet one parent often invests more heavily than the other. We introduce a microeconomic framework for understanding household investment decisions to address questions concerning conflicts of interest over types and amount of work effort among married men and women. Although gains and costs of marriage may not be spread equally among marriage partners, marriage is still a favorable, efficient outcome under a wide range of conditions. This bioeconomic framework subsumes both cooperative and conflictive views on the sexual division of labor. We test hypotheses concerning marriage markets, assortative mating, and men’s labor motivations among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia and find that: (1) men and women both value work effort in marital partners, (2) marital labor contributions are complementary, (3) work effort is correlated between spouses, (4) total production is correlated with total reproduction, and (5) better hunters have higher fitness gains within marital unions.     

Worker Personality and Its Association with Spatially Structured Division of Labor

Division of labor is a defining characteristic of social insects and fundamental to their ecological success. Many of the numerous tasks essential for the survival of the colony must be performed at a specific location. Consequently, spatial organization is an integral aspect of division of labor. The mechanisms organizing the spatial distribution of workers, separating inside and outside workers without central control, is an essential, but so far neglected aspect of division of labor. In this study, we investigate the behavioral mechanisms governing the spatial distribution of individual workers and its physiological underpinning in the ant Myrmica rubra. By investigating worker personalities we uncover position-associated behavioral syndromes. This context-independent and temporally stable set of correlated behaviors (positive association between movements and attraction towards light) could promote the basic separation between inside (brood tenders) and outside workers (foragers). These position-associated behavior syndromes are coupled with a high probability to perform tasks, located at the defined position, and a characteristic cuticular hydrocarbon profile. We discuss the potentially physiological causes for the observed behavioral syndromes and highlight how the study of animal personalities can provide new insights for the study of division of labor and self-organized processes in general.