KNO12: Ideas for enhancing effective communication and outreach for subsistence based households in Western Alaska: what we learned from Alaskan native women

Date: Thursday October 11, 2018

Location: Erottaja, ELY

Time: 10:30-12:00

This session will explore the strategies that Alaskan Native women employ in response to climate change on their subsistence based households, the role of Traditional Knowledge in times of climate change, and what those women practicing a subsistence lifestyle would like scholars to know. Furthermore, the session broadens the topic to explore ways of knowing and how information is passed in Indigenous cultures via ceremony. The purpose of this session is to bring Alaska Native women more fully back into the discussions and conversations about monitoring and assessing Arctic biodiversity. This session will provide an opportunity for understanding women’s concerns about Arctic biodiversity with the hope that conversations could shift to ask what works in terms of communication and outreach for these women and their households, rather than asking how do we get women to respond to external outreach and communication tools and methodologies.

Chairs: Elizabeth Kersey, The Alaska Climate Resiliency Project; Nastasia Levi, The Alaska Climate Resiliency Project

Format: Series of presentations followed by discussion

• Ideas for enhancing effective communication and outreach for subsistence based households in Western Alaska: what we learned from Alaskan native women: Elizabeth Kersey and Nastasia Levi, The Alaska Climate Resiliency Project

Abstracts:

Ideas for enhancing effective communication and outreach for subsistence based households in Western Alaska: what we learned from Alaskan native women

Elizabeth Kersey and Nastasia Levi, The Alaska Climate Resiliency Project

The purpose of our presentation is to bring Alaska Native women--who practice a subsistence lifestyle—more fully back into the discussions and conversations about monitoring and assessing Arctic biodiversity. We do this by sharing what we learned by interviewing several women (between 5-10 women) from Western Alaska subsistence based communities. We had three areas of interest in our interviews: the impact of climate change on subsistence practices; the role of traditional knowledge in times of climate change; and what they would like scientists who study Arctic biodiversity to know from their perspective. By hearing from these women--who have to live by climate change consequences--a broader, more expansive and enriched set of communication and outreach tools and methodologies can be created. Further, this presentation will provide an opportunity for understanding these women’s concerns about Arctic biodiversity, with the hope that for this presentation, conversations could shift, positionally. That is, to shift, to asking what works in terms of communication and outreach for these women and their households, rather than asking how do we get women to respond to outreach and communication tools and methodologies? Our focus in this presentation is for these women, their responses and their words to inform what is shared. We conclude by initiating a discussion with those in attendance about what this means when it comes to effective communication and outreach tools and methodologies.