Last updated: September 3, 2024
Article
Powerful Humanities Research Methods Can Help Us Avoid Overburdening Tribes
Transcending disciplinary boundaries to include humanities-based research may alleviate research fatigue and make space for more meaningful conversations.
By Lisa Fink
Image credit: NPS / Blog Root
More and more, federal land management agencies are emphasizing including Indigenous knowledge in the science of managing public lands, in policymaking, and in decision-making. Doing this isn’t simply a matter of park staff recognizing the value of Indigenous knowledge; it’s the law. But although collaborating with Indigenous communities is critical to effective land stewardship, overburdening them with requests can lead to research fatigue. Instead, the National Park Service’s Alaska Region is using archival research and other scholarly humanities methods to uncover existing repositories of Indigenous knowledge. The region’s work shows that these methods can be useful tools for bridging the gap between Indigenous knowledge and all aspects of managing our natural and cultural heritage.
Reclaiming What We Already Know
The goal of directives such as Executive Order 13175, the 2021 Joint Secretarial Order, or Presidential memo 11-15-21 is to fulfill the department’s obligations to Tribes. These directives have another outcome that’s just as important: they give parks the opportunity to meet the complex challenges of our time by including Indigenous voices in how they manage public lands. But Alaska Native Tribal Affairs Program Manager Maija Katak Lukin (Iñupiaq) notes, “A lot of times, Tribes end up with [research] fatigue because federal agencies—the Park Service, Fish and Wildlife, [Bureau of Land Management]—we all come and ask the same question to a single Tribe, and they just don’t have the capacity we have in terms of human capital. If we could figure out a way to work together to reduce that burden, it would be super beneficial to Tribes.”
Doing your homework first “shows…that you’re respecting people’s time.”
One reason for tribal research fatigue is that government agencies often don’t recognize the knowledge they already have: Over many decades, tribal communities have shared vast amounts of information about Indigenous knowledge and cultural expression of that knowledge with national parks. Interpretation is a type of work that aims to inspire audiences to think, feel, and act in new ways in relation to the land, its meanings, and significances. In 2023, leaders in interpretation, in collaboration with Alaska Natives, cultural anthropologists, and other scientists, launched an initiative to uncover existing collections of Indigenous knowledge and integrate them into the region’s storytelling. I’m helping to shepherd this initiative by partnering with agency staff to identify Indigenous knowledge that has already been shared with the agency. This includes oral histories, interview transcripts, ethnographic surveys, and more. I’ve found these materials in the collections and archives of the regional office, the parks, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
An advisor on this initiative, Lukin says, “It’s super important to understand—one—what your agency has already asked [Tribes], because realistically it’s somewhere, and—two—what other agencies have already asked them, because if you can…you should find it there.” Aaron Leggett (Dena’ina), president of the Native Village of Eklutna, is the senior curator of Alaska History at the Anchorage Museum. He’s also an advisor on the initiative. He echoes Lukin’s sentiments, noting that doing your homework first “shows…that you’re respecting people’s time.” Leggett says that a complete inventory should also include records of those who are no longer living. That way, park scientists won’t “[miss out] on a segment of the community.”
Image credit: NPS / Blog Root
A Culture Change
The initiative acknowledges that working this way may be a culture change for agency scientists and interpreters. It goes against common biases like valuing Western knowledge over Indigenous knowledge or one’s own discipline over other disciplines. Megan Richotte, team lead for Interpretation, Education, and Partnerships in the Alaska Region, who spearheaded the initiative, says, “When we neglect to recognize the depth of [Indigenous] knowledge and the significance of its representation in culture, we cannot truly know and understand these places.” Richotte worked closely with Lake Clark National Park cultural anthropologist Karen Evanoff (Dena’ina), another advisor on the initiative, to tell a more complete story about the land, water, and wildlife by emphasizing Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and voices.
Keeping Tribes in the Loop
Despite the goal of reducing the burden on Tribes, archival research shouldn’t be done without their input. The aforementioned orders and memos, starting with Executive Order 13175 in the year 2000, require consultation with Tribes if there’s “any tribal implication.” To know if there’s a tribal implication, federal agencies must inform Tribes of all the policies, projects, and other such things taking place within the land the agencies manage. This is because Tribes—not federal agencies—decide “what a tribal implication is,” Lukin says. The Alaska Region initiative informs Tribes about our research through formal consultation letters, meetings, and informal conversations.
Ensuring mutual benefit (in other words, practicing reciprocity) includes paying for knowledge holders’ labor, time, and travel, just as one would compensate someone with a PhD for their expertise.
“Number two on your list,” says Lukin, “is if you can’t find the information that you want, you should have funding to find someone to answer questions for you.” Ensuring mutual benefit (in other words, practicing reciprocity) includes paying for knowledge holders’ labor, time, and travel, just as one would compensate someone with a PhD for their expertise. Or better yet, parks can develop agreements with Tribes, paying them to carry out projects in their entirety. Building strong relationships is essential, because there are many things to consider, such as tribal communities’ timelines and capacity. For example, Lukin explains, park employees shouldn’t schedule meetings in Kotzebue in August. This is because tribal communities will be busy picking berries in the small window they have to gather winter food for their families. “What’s critical,” Lukin says, “is…relationship…respect and…equalizing Indigenous knowledge and Western science.”
Image credit: NPS / Blog Root
One important way of developing relationships and sharing stewardship is working with Tribes to create interpretive materials—in other words, materials that invite visitors to connect with park stories. A park may partner with local villages, for example, to identify topics for archival research that could be used to make a park film. The park might offer Tribes multiple opportunities to help shape the film’s content, paying for tribal members’ time and travel. Or perhaps park staff sits down with elders and other knowledge holders to review and discuss an exhibit or webpage, such as this one about harbor seals. Parks will ask what Indigenous knowledge and cultural expressions would be appropriate to include on the page to guide how we relate to and understand the land. Tribal members may also help parks use the correct tribal language (including spelling and pronunciation) for placenames and wildlife in publications like junior ranger booklets. As much as possible, we want to create opportunities for Tribes to tell the stories of their land and people.
Reading between the Lines
The park archive for Katmai National Park contains roughly 60 oral history tapes (not including exit interviews, interviews for publications, and public meetings) collected since 1961. These records contain living histories of the 1912 Novarupta-Katmai eruption and cover such topics as animal trapping, subsistence living, and the first rangers to work at Brooks Camp. But the recordkeepers for materials like these often obscured the Indigenous knowledge they collected. They did this in part by failing to identify Indigenous information as deep knowledge based on thousands of years of close observation.
Placing this information in a new context can restore Indigenous knowledge to the original context from which it was extracted and identify the knowledge holder as such.
In such cases, humanities researchers can apply the “hermeneutics of suspicion.” That means reading critically and analytically, “against the grain and between the lines,” to quote literary theorist Rita Felski. These methods place texts within their historical context and identify the purpose for which they were created, such as legitimizing federal control over park lands or countering Native claims to the land. Knowing the context helps researchers read beyond the ways authors of such documents framed the information. For example, they may have framed it as “anecdotal” or as mere story, without acknowledging stories as critical ways of transferring knowledge across generations. Placing this information in a new context can restore Indigenous knowledge to the original context from which it was extracted and identify the knowledge holder as such.
Image credit NPS / Nicole Peters
Another strategy referred to as “close reading” enables researchers to identify Indigenous knowledge embedded in stories, songs, ceremonies, and visual records. As the name suggests, close reading means closely observing and analyzing a narrative’s form, content, and context. Consider Iñupiaq writer Lily Tuzroyluke’s 2023 historical novel, Sivulliq: Ancestor, which begins with a moving description of the protagonist’s sister suffering from smallpox and the medicinal knowledge she uses to help ease her sister’s suffering.
“I make a salve with rosehips, black spruce sap, and coltsfoot,” she relates. “Rosehips are to calm the skin lesions, sap for the inflammation, and coltsfoot to ease her pain. Last spring, I collected the rosehips and sap in a grove, between two murky rivers. I seep all the ingredients, adding seal oil, waiting until it’s grey, heavy, green, and floral. I run the salve over her body. She finally sleeps.” Close reading of this novel reveals that plants are powerful medicine, which the Iñupiat know deeply and respect and which fuel their resilience in a dystopian world brought about by colonialism.
NPS / MK Repetski
Where scientists in other disciplines might see a simple story, humanities researchers recognize the social complexities expressed in fictional narratives and other artistic media.
Where scientists in other disciplines might see a simple story, humanities researchers recognize the social complexities expressed in fictional narratives and other artistic media. Beyond valuable medicinal knowledge, these art forms record place names and Alaska Native languages. Including them in park exhibits and wayfinding materials, such as maps and signs, can help keep those languages alive. And they demonstrate different ways of knowing and being in the world held by Native cultures.
My preliminary research on Sugpiaq (Alutiiq) knowledge on Sitka spruce for Kenai Fjords National Park indicates the Sugpiat know a range of uses for this tree, like medicine, food storage, and trapping and fishing technology. They use all parts of the tree, even the decaying wood. Napag, Sugcestun for “Sitka spruce,” is viewed as the most important plant for their subsistence economy rather than as an expendable resource with monetary value that can be extracted for profit.
Moving beyond Knowledge Silos
Shared stewardship is an important way to bridge the divide between government agencies and Tribes. Yet silos between agencies and between programs and departments within the same agency present barriers to that work. “Government functions can be opaque to people who don’t work within a government context,” explains Alaska Region science coordinator Jeff Rasic, an advisor on the initiative. “And the silos add even more opacity to that.” Overcoming disciplinary boundaries within the agency can thus further support relationships and partnerships with Tribes.
“Thousands of years before parks were established and the term ‘conservation’ and all of that, Indigenous cultures had an entire system of stewardship.”
When natural and social scientists collaborate with humanities researchers, they acquire knowledge that transcends disciplinary boundaries. This is because humanities researchers are well equipped to identify environmental information—like ideal trail routes, salmon run times, and harvesting impacts—in creative media and narrative forms like oral histories. Research shows that moving beyond disciplinary silos has benefits. Evanoff says, “Think about it. Thousands of years before parks were established and the term ‘conservation’ and all of that, Indigenous cultures had an entire system of stewardship. So there’s a lot to learn there.”
Image credit: NPS / Lisa Fink
Seeing through Multiple Lenses
Evanoff emphasizes that the voices of Indigenous community members, not just white settlers, must shape the narratives that drive scientific research and land management. This concept is called “Inside Voices.” “Inside Voices is about the representation of cultural groups who do not always get to sit at the table,” Evanoff says.
In the past, people trained in Western knowledge traditions defined the problems, developed the solutions, and told the stories solely through that lens. “You have subsistence users living in the land and out there doing their thing,” says Evanoff, “and then you have these rules and laws developed by people often who have no idea what it’s like in rural Alaska hunting and fishing and living from the land, and yet they’re setting the rules and the laws.”
The burden has been on subsistence users to translate their way of understanding the world for scientists and policymakers. If they can’t do that, their voices aren’t heard.
The burden has been on subsistence users to translate their way of understanding the world for scientists and policymakers. If they can’t do that, their voices aren’t heard. Inside Voices necessarily includes living knowledge holders as well as voices from the past contained in archives. A good example of this kind of collaboration is the Native and Western science of Brown Bears at Lake Clark National Park.
The Alaska Region initiative is applying the “Inside Voices” concept using a Two-Eyed Seeing approach developed by Mi’kmaw elder Albert Marshall. This approach presents Indigenous knowledge alongside and on equal footing with Western knowledge. “For too long much of the NPS work in interpretation of land, water, and wildlife has probably been almost unrecognizable to many Native people,” says Richotte, “particularly people who live closely on their ancestral lands. The NPS is in a period of change that I'm very happy to be part of.” In this way, the initiative doesn’t seek to replace one worldview with another. It looks through both lenses to tell more accurate stories and obtain a better understanding of what constitutes good, effective science and policy.
Healing the Harm of Erasure
In recent Co-Stewardship Talking Circles held around Alaska, Alaska Natives asked federal agencies to recognize the depth of knowledge they hold about national park lands. To ignore the significance of this information is to continue the harm of erasure inflicted on Alaska Natives for whom park lands are homelands. How we interpret lands, waters, and wildlife for the public shapes how we value and relate to them, which in turn reflects and molds decisions about resources, power, and control of public lands. Shared stewardship of our stories is thus critical to a deeper, wiser understanding of those lands.
How we interpret lands, waters, and wildlife for the public shapes how we value and relate to them, which in turn reflects and molds decisions about resources, power, and control of public lands.
But historically, the broader society has excluded Indigenous voices from those stories. Recent federal policy clarifies the department’s obligations for rectifying this omission. Adopting humanities-based research methods and interpretation programs help parks follow through on these obligations in powerful ways. The insights we gain from this kind of interdisciplinary and collaborative work will allow park and other public land managers to better meet the challenges they face—without overburdening Tribal communities.
