Year of Award

2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Name

Anthropology (Cultural Heritage and Applied Anthropology Option)

Department or School/College

Department of Anthropology

Committee Chair

Anna Prentiss

Commitee Members

Kimber H. McKay, Kristen Barnett, Richard Sattler, Sarah J. Halvorson

Publisher

University of Montana

Abstract

In over 10 years of environmental and socioeconomic studies surrounding the controversial Pebble Limited Partnership mine project design and permitting, commercial salmon fishers’ voices in Bristol Bay, Alaska remain unheard. To meaningfully participate in cultural resource management decision-making that affects them, communities need to speak, yet fisher communities rarely have an established voice. This dissertation uses critical collaborative ethnography and Indigenist research paradigms to describe how the recognition of living heritage communities can be facilitated through the identification of ethnographic landscapes. Such landscapes reflect the meaningful relationship of culture and place, concepts that are currently under-represented in Alaska. Not only my Self as a fisher, but also Other as researcher are presented in a single narrative that weaves together fisher interviews and conversations. As part of a growing body of collaborative research, this dissertation aims to decolonize research by seeking out alternative histories and amplifying marginalized voices of fishers who perpetuate experiential knowledge, and transmit this heritage to future generations through the yearly harvesting of the renewable resource of wild salmon.

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© Copyright 2017 Sarah Jane Braund