Political Science

Geographers often practice “fieldwork” for research, physically traveling between field and the academy. While critical scholars have contemplated their positionality in the field, what gets overlooked is how academic constructions of their “field” can discount indigenous peoples’ knowledges of “home.” Because academics’ representations of “the field” affirm the subject/object binary, this ontology allows indigenous peoples’ knowledges to be criticized in their emotional expressions of their homelands. In this paper I describe my practices of “field” work to disrupt this ontology—and in so doing, what emerges is my deeply emotional engagement with this “field,” produced through the network of materialities and beings with whom I worked. Network ontologies allow more space for discussing the emotional and affective experiences of a field site, including researcher uncertainty and responsibility. Attending to both conscious and unconscious motives to action is a more rigorous critical practice, and representing emotions can at once benefit research goals (emotional engagements leading to new insights), and lead to new politics of knowledge production and representation: such as opening a space for indigenous peoples to be recognized as legitimate spokespersons about their own beloved landscapes.

Decision rules are the agreed-upon points at which specific management interventions are initiated. For marine mammal management under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), decision rules are usually based on either a numeric population or biological-removal approach. However, for walrus and other ice-associated pinnipeds, the inability to reliably assess population numbers or biological removals highlights a significant gap in the MMPA, particularly when the Arctic environment is rapidly changing. We describe the MMPA's ecosystem-based management goals, and why managers have bypassed these goals in favor of an approach that depends upon numerical population assessment. We then revisit the statute's primary goals in light of current knowledge about the Pacific walrus ecosystem and new developments in environmental governance. We argue that to monitor and respond to changes in the walrus ecosystem, decision rules should be based on scientific criteria that depend less on the currentlyimpractical goal of accurately enumerating population size and trends, or removals from that population. Rather, managers should base decisions on ecological needs and observed ecological changes. To implement this approach would require an amendment to the MMPA that supports filling the gap in management with achievable decision rules. Alternatively, walrus and other ice-associated pinnipeds will remain largely unmanaged during a period of profound environmental change.

Governments, NGOs, and natural scientists have increased research and policy-making collaborations with Indigenous peoples for governing natural resources, including official co-management regimes. However, there is continuing dissatisfaction with such collaborations, and calls for better communication and mutual learning to create more '

The purpose of this report is to gain broader perspective on the stock, status, and history of natural and cultural resources, with particular attention to moose (Alces alces) as well as local knowledge about ecological and social impacts of climate change by residents of Allakaket and Alatna, which lay south of Gates of the Arctic National Park. The boreal forest is said to be experiencing climate change at twice the rate of other ecosystems; this cultural resources report develops qualitative socio-cultural data from the Koyukon community of Allakaket and the Inupiat community of Alatna, and links their local and traditional knowledges to ongoing natural resource inventorying, monitoring, and assessment. Today’s families of Allakaket and Alatna are a product of generations of negotiations, ritual, and intermarriage between the cultural groups. Today, these villages often share the same infrastructure—the same airport, clinic, store, and their youth all attend the same school—yet Alatna and Allakaket maintain distinct identities as communities and political bodies. Researchers found an enduring commitment to subsistence-based lifestyles by residents of both villages. But what researchers also found is that, because of the changing socio-ecological context, these communities share increasing vulnerabilities with the other biota with whom they share the land. This study articulates many challenges for these communities’ food security, which include continuing challenges to access foods necessary for their spiritual and physical survival.

We examine how a good faith effort at collaboration with Native peoples in the regulation of white-fronted geese in North America nonetheless resulted in their marginalization. Our investigation explores how dramatically different ways of knowing are articulated and contested in a complex, structurally differentiated, and highly professionalized institutional setting—the Migratory Bird Management Regime of North America. We find local knowledge emerging among and being legible to the street-level administrators of the management regime, but unable to penetrate regional management, where methodological commitments reinforced existing problem frames and administrative objectives.

Indigenous peoples have been enrolled in climate change research for decades, participating in data-gathering, as writing collaborators, and serving as the symbolic ''canary in the coal mine'' for public outreach and policy-making. They have indeed experienced some of the most rapid environmental changes, but rather than emphasize their vulnerabilities, we argue their expertise is narrowly understood in formulating knowledge; the research on climate change has a limited understanding of what it might mean to be inter-or trans-disciplinary because research is formulated exclusively through the assumptions of Enlightenment thought, without sufficiently engaging non-Western subjectivities. Qualitative social sciences and ''Indigenous methodologies'' can be used to better achieve trans-disciplinarity; in this article we re-tell a story told by Native elders from tribes across Alaska about the ''man on the moon.'' While literally referring to the US moon landing, elders invoke this story when addressing climate change: it teaches the ethics of the human-nature relationship, developed from a ''more-than-human'' (or ''posthuman'') philosophy. Our data comes from participant-observation and oral history; we draw upon poststructuralist theory, and frame our analysis through the literatures of critical geography, science studies, and American Indian studies. To ensure that Indigenous peoples are not used as props in Western policy agendas, researchers must engage with non-Enlightenment intellectual traditions. More than being a source of data or a symbol of humanity's ruin, Indigenous wisdom can productively inform sustainable policy agendas to adapt to climate change. What can be learned, for example, is a more-than-human ethics of place and space.

Chagas disease is a leading cause of non-ischemic cardiomyopathy in Latin America and an infection of emerging importance in the USA. Recent studies have uncovered evidence of an active peridomestic cycle in southern states, yet autochthonous transmission to humans has been rarely reported. We conducted a systematic review of the literature and public health department reports to investigate suspected or confirmed locally acquired cases of Chagas in the USA. We found 76 cases of contemporary suspected or confirmed locally acquired Chagas disease, nearly ten times the case counts cited in the prior 50 years of scientific literature. Shared risk factors among cases include rural residence, history of hunting or camping, and agricultural or outdoor work. The results of this review suggest that the disease burden and risk of autochthonous Chagas infection is potentially higher in the USA than previously recognized.

The South Carolina Lowcountry has an abundance of geographically isolated wetlands (GIWs), which provide important water cycling functions and biogeochemical processing services, and which are habitat for rare and threatened plants and animals. Isolated wetlands are not well protected in a regulatory or legal sense in the United States, including South Carolina, leaving them vulnerable to land use change pressures from rapid growth and in-migration. This project investigated how private landowners in rural areas near Charleston, South Carolina, perceive wetlands and their general knowledge about wetlands using semistructured interviews and site visits. Landowners' observed and self-reported management and use activities were documented and analyzed for impacts to isolated wetland hydrology and amphibian habitat quality. Most landowners had positive perceptions of wetlands, were somewhat knowledgeable about wetland functions, and were conducting land use activities that could possibly affect the hydrology and negatively impact the habitat quality of the isolated wetlands on their property. Many landowners exhibited a disconnect between the perceived impacts of their management and use activities and the impacts observed in this study. While these private landowners do not seem to be threatening the hydrology of GIWs in this area, the impacts to habitat quality are still concerning. Landowner education programming is recommended, which would link common management activities to impacts on isolated wetlands. Furthermore, policy and land use zoning changes would encourage the protection of isolated wetlands in this region.

Indigenous peoples have been enrolled in climate change research for decades, participating in data-gathering, as writing collaborators, and serving as the symbolic ''canary in the coal mine'' for public outreach and policy-making. They have indeed experienced some of the most rapid environmental changes, but rather than emphasize their vulnerabilities, we argue their expertise is narrowly understood in formulating knowledge; the research on climate change has a limited understanding of what it might mean to be inter-or trans-disciplinary because research is formulated exclusively through the assumptions of Enlightenment thought, without sufficiently engaging non-Western subjectivities. Qualitative social sciences and ''Indigenous methodologies'' can be used to better achieve trans-disciplinarity; in this article we re-tell a story told by Native elders from tribes across Alaska about the ''man on the moon.'' While literally referring to the US moon landing, elders invoke this story when addressing climate change: it teaches the ethics of the human-nature relationship, developed from a ''more-than-human'' (or ''posthuman'') philosophy. Our data comes from participant-observation and oral history; we draw upon poststructuralist theory, and frame our analysis through the literatures of critical geography, science studies, and American Indian studies. To ensure that Indigenous peoples are not used as props in Western policy agendas, researchers must engage with non-Enlightenment intellectual traditions. More than being a source of data or a symbol of humanity's ruin, Indigenous wisdom can productively inform sustainable policy agendas to adapt to climate change. What can be learned, for example, is a more-than-human ethics of place and space.

In response to increasing threats from sea-level rise and storm surge, the City of Charleston, South Carolina, and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) propose constructing a seawall around the Charleston peninsula. The proposed seawall will terminate close to lower wealth, predominantly minority communities. These communities are identified as environmental justice (EJ) communities due to their history of inequitable burdens of industrial and urban pollution and proximity to highways and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated Superfund sites. The present study documents community concerns and opinions related to the proposed seawall, existing flooding problems, and other issues. The project was guided by knowledge co-production and participant-observation approaches and included interviews with community members, collection of locality-specific data, GIS mapping to visualize key issues, development of an ArcGIS Story Map, and participation in public meetings. Communi...

Global changes in climate, connectivity, and commerce are having profound impacts on the Arctic environment and inhabitants. There is widespread recognition of the value of incorporating different worldviews and perspectives when seeking to understand the consequences of these impacts. In turn, attention to local needs, perspectives, and cultures is seen as essential for fostering effective adaptation planning, or more broadly, the resilience of local peoples. The emerging literature on "knowledge co-production" identifies factors that can help incorporate such local information. This field focuses on how different models of what has been termed the "science-policy interface" can incorporate multiple epistemologies. Such an approach goes beyond observing or assessing change from different scales and perspectives, to defining conditions that support the co-production of actionable knowledge. This approach requires the development of response tools that can accommodate the dynamic relationships among people, wildlife, and habitats that straddle cultures, timescapes, and sometimes, national boundaries. We use lessons from seven Alaskan cases studies to describe a typology of five elements important for the co-production of locally relevant actionable knowledge. Three elements are consistent with earlier work, including 1) evolving communities of practice, 2) iterative processes for defining problems and solutions, and 3) presence of boundary organizations, such as a government agency, university, or co-management council. Our results for the Alaskan Arctic also emphasize the critical need to incorporate 4) the consistent provision of sufficient funds and labor that may transcend any one specific project goal or funding cycle, and 5) long temporal scales (sometimes decades) for achieving the co-production of actionable knowledge. Our results have direct relevance to understanding the mechanisms that might foster greater success in more formalized co-management regimes.

Governments, NGOs, and natural scientists have increased research and policy-making collaborations with Indigenous peoples for governing natural resources, including official co-management regimes. However, there is continuing dissatisfaction with such collaborations, and calls for better communication and mutual learning to create more ''adaptive'' co-management regimes. This, however, requires that both Western and Indigenous knowledge systems be equal participants in the ''co-production'' of regulatory data. In this article, I examine the power dynamics of one co-management regulatory regime, conducting a multi-sited ethnography of the practices of researching and managing one transnational migratory species, greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons frontalis), who nest where Koyukon Athabascans in Alaska, USA, practice subsistence. Analyzing the ethnographic data through the literatures of critical geography, science studies and Indigenous Studies, I describe how the practice of researching for co-management can produce conflict. ''Scaling'' the data for the co-management regime can marginalize Indigenous understandings of humanenvironment relations. While Enlightenment-based practices in wildlife biology avoid ''anthropomorphism,'' Indigenous Studies describes identities that operate through non-modern, deeply imbricated human-nonhuman identities that do not separate ''nature'' and ''society'' in making knowledge. Thus, misunderstanding the ''nature'' of their collaborations causes biologists and managers to measure and research the system in ways that erase how subsistence-based Indigenous groups already ''manage'' wildlife: by living through their ethical commitments to their fellow beings. At the end of the article, I discuss how managers might learn from these ontological and epistemological differences to better ''co-produce'' data for comanagement. Keywords Indigenous knowledges Á Power Á Co-management Á Co-production Á Scaling

Decision rules are the agreed-upon points at which specific management interventions are initiated. For marine mammal management under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), decision rules are usually based on either a numeric population or biological-removal approach. However, for walrus and other ice-associated pinnipeds, the inability to reliably assess population numbers or biological removals highlights a significant gap in the MMPA, particularly when the Arctic environment is rapidly changing. We describe the MMPA's ecosystem-based management goals, and why managers have bypassed these goals in favor of an approach that depends upon numerical population assessment. We then revisit the statute's primary goals in light of current knowledge about the Pacific walrus ecosystem and new developments in environmental governance. We argue that to monitor and respond to changes in the walrus ecosystem, decision rules should be based on scientific criteria that depend less on the currentlyimpractical goal of accurately enumerating population size and trends, or removals from that population. Rather, managers should base decisions on ecological needs and observed ecological changes. To implement this approach would require an amendment to the MMPA that supports filling the gap in management with achievable decision rules. Alternatively, walrus and other ice-associated pinnipeds will remain largely unmanaged during a period of profound environmental change.