Abstract
This chapter examines how a new methodological approach, peer observation of research, was used as part of a comparative, ethnographic study of social resilience in Alaska and Siberia. The approach evolved through the collaboration of two indigenous researchers working in two different regions of the Arctic. Breaking from what has become a standard auto-ethnographic or self-reflexive enterprise in anthropology, our study aimed to document the collaborative ethnographic interaction from multiple perspectives and positions. We present two fieldwork episodes demonstrating the process and potential utility of a peer observation method for social researchers working in collaboration with indigenous communities and people in the Arctic. Peer observation of research reveals: (1) the ways in which our methods and models of collaborative research are relational and negotiated within an indigenous community and cultural context and (2) the degree to which our own indigenous kinship and association influences our ethnographic outcomes in a fieldwork setting leading to productive points of orientation and disorientation.
A Malemut shaman from Kotzebue sound near Selawik lake told me that a great chief lives in the moon who is visited now and then by shamans who always go to him two at a time, as one man is ashamed to go alone… (Nelson 1900: 515)
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Notes
- 1.
Yup’ik (pl. Yupiit) are the indigenous inhabitants of southwest and southcentral Alaska and parts of eastern Siberia . Yup’ik is part of the Inuit language family and the Yup’ik speaking peoples are traditional hunters and gatherers who would move on a seasonal round with a primary focus on salmon, sea mammals and tundra flora and fauna.
- 2.
The term ‘indigenous’ has been widely used in reference to all sorts of people, including dominant European nations interchangeably and has no straightforward and clear-cut definition. Here, we use the term ‘indigenous’ in reference to the endogenous populations of a particular geographic region, such as the Arctic, who have experienced colonial and de-colonial occupation and oppression by a dominant population.
- 3.
The Eveny are an Asiatic numerically-small people that number around 17,000 and speak a Tungus-Manchu language. Most Eveny live in northern Siberia and engage in a double economy that combines reindeer herding and hunting.
- 4.
We thank our knowledgable Eveny elder, Vasilii Spiridonovich Keimetinov-Bargachan for informing us on the concept of nyamnin.
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Rasmus, S., Ulturgasheva, O. (2017). From Lone Wolves to Relational Reindeer: Revealing Anthropological Myths and Methods in the Arctic. In: Fondahl, G., Wilson, G. (eds) Northern Sustainabilities: Understanding and Addressing Change in the Circumpolar World. Springer Polar Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46150-2_17
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