A wide variety of land and resource management regimes have evolved between states and indigenous peoples and among indigenous peoples in particular state regimes in the circumpolar north. This project compares the evolution of state-indigenous systems among the Tlingit and Inuit peoples of Southeast and Northwest Alaska and Canada. Specifically, the project analyzes how the creation of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) business corporations in 1971 transformed institutional arrangements between Natives, state governments, ecosystems, and regional-global economies, and has contributed to particular outcomes in indigenous groups' biocultural health as measured by the sustainable livelihoods assessment. ANCSA corporations, as distinct ethnic and placed based sociocultural institutions, hold unique perspectives (in contrast to conventional corporations and their shareholders) on the relative importance of the various forms of capital - including natural, physical, political, financial, human, social and cultural capital - that in combination support sustainable livelihoods and mitigate against vulnerabilities from a variety of ecological, political-economic, and socio-cultural stresses. In their development ANCSA corporations have sought to balance these various forms of capital in significantly different ways leading to a variety of outcomes, from increased financial, natural resources, and social security to increased economic vulnerability and environmental degradation. To understand the diversity of outcomes the project evaluates four dimensions of indigenous-state institutional governance as a framework for comparative analysis of sustainable development: 1) land selection, management, and property rights (natural and financial capital); 2) resource conservation and development (natural and physical capital); 3) sociopolitical organization, leadership and inequality (human, political, and social capital); and 4) cultural conservation and revitalization (social and cultural capital). While analytically separable, the project shows how, in practice, these four dimensions interrelate on a variety of levels which contribute (or fail to contribute) to the biocultural diversity and health of indigenous communities. Data are drawn from reviews of the published and unpublished literature, analysis of demographic and socioeconomic data, confidential interviews with Alaska Natives, ANCSA corporate leaders, and other stakeholders, and participant observation. Local Native communities are involved in all phases of the research and the results will be published and shared with the participating Tlingit and Inupiaq corporations and communities and used to better understand the historical role their corporations have played in promoting sustainable livelihoods, and how effort might be best directed to insure healthy development in the future.
The broader significance of this inquiry is that it will advance our understanding of sustainable livelihoods and biocultural health by addressing key cross-cultural dimensions of indigenous-state relations and policy-making in North America and beyond. Alaska Native Corporations are unique hybrid institutions with a 35-year track record of development. Other indigenous peoples, including Tlingit and Inuit peoples of Canada, have been iinterested in the Alaska model, but this project is the first to provide a multidimensional comparative study of Alaska Native corporations as total cultural institutions rather than simple business corporations. In this era of rapid environmental and social change and expanding conflicts and stress over environmental resources and sociopolitical and cultural rights, this study will provide a useful framework and benchmark for assessing how states and indigenous peoples can best achieve sustainable livelihoods in the twenty-first century without sacrificing cultural or environmental integrity.
