Abstract
Rapid economic, social, political and cultural changes have characterized societal and human development in the circumpolar north since World War II. The development includes new government structures, devolution of power from southern capitals to northern communities, and the development of self-governing entities. This development has been accelerated by growing self-awareness of indigenous and other Arctic residents. The documentation of large oil, gas and mineral deposits has increased the economic interests in the Arctic, and the indisputable evidence of global warming has resulted in an increased focus on human development, on livelihoods, living conditions, subjective wellbeing and quality of life in Arctic societies.
This chapter is based on data and research results from almost 8,000 personal interviews of the Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic (SLiCA). SLiCA was conducted among Inuit, Saami and indigenous peoples of Chukotka and the Kola Peninsula in the period 2001–2008. SLiCA findings document similarities, common backgrounds and huge differences in living conditions, subjective wellbeing and quality of life among indigenous peoples of the Arctic.
Assessed and analyzed by The Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic: SLiCA.
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Notes
- 1.
The six Permanent Participants of the Arctic Council are: Aleut International Association, Arctic Athabaskan Council (AAC), Gwich’in Council International (GCI), Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), Russian Arctic Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) and Saami Council (http://www.arcticportal.org/arctic-council - accessed October 28, 2013). The Permanent Participants represent the estimated 500,000 indigenous people of the circumpolar region in the Arctic Council.
- 2.
http://www.arcticportal.org/arctic-council. Accessed 28 October 2013.
- 3.
In the Arctic Human Development Report II, Rautio et al. refer to a number of projects and studies focusing on social indicators and different aspects of health and wellbeing (Rautio et al. 2014).
- 4.
A follow-up: Arctic Human Development Report II will be published in 2014.
- 5.
SLiCA was adopted as an Arctic Council project under the auspices of the Sustainable Development Working Group, SDWG at the Ministerial meeting in Barrow, October 2000 and included in the Sustainable Development Plan, SDAP 2004–2006, 2006–2008, 2008–2010/2011.
- 6.
The first Saami Parliamentarian Conference took place in Jokkmokk, 24 February 2005 and concluded in ‘Declaration from the First Sami Parliamentarian Conference Jokkmokk’, 24 February 2005
- 7.
RAIPON was established in Moscow, March 1990. http://ansipra.npolar.no/english/Index.html. Accessed 28 October 2013.
- 8.
The Permanent Participants in the Arctic Council representing the indigenous peoples of the Arctic includes the Aleut International Association, Arctic Athabaskan Council (AAC), Gwich’in Council International (GCI). http://www.arcticportal.org/arctic-council. (Accessed 28 October 2013).
- 9.
http://www.arcticportal.org/arctic-council#permanent-participants. The uncertainty is due to different definitions in official statistics around the Arctic: in Sápmi (the homeland of the Saami in the northernmost parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland) residents are not registered by ethnicity; in the Russian North the following peoples are identified in the censuses: Saami, Nenets, Khanty, Sel’kup, Enets, Nganasan, Dolgan, Evenk, Even, Yukagir, Chukchi, Chuvanc and Eskimo/Inui-Yupik; in Greenland the distinction is between residents born in and outside Greenland; in Alaska the US census includes Americans and Alaskan natives; and Canada defines Inuit, North American Indians and Metis as indigenous (AHDR 2004:29).
- 10.
There are different definitions of the Arctic and the total population varies accordingly. The delimitation used here is defined by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) and used in most assessments and reports developed under the auspices of the Arctic Council (AHDR 2004:18–19) – see Map 32.1: SLiCA regions below.
- 11.
The six socio-economic indicators are: female proportion, life expectancy, infant mortality, tertiary education, disposable income and dependency rate (Duhaime and Caron 2008:13).
- 12.
Share of women in the total population.
- 13.
Average personal disposable income.
- 14.
This question, of course, only makes sense if people are able to move which was and is the case. The observed fairly stable population figures in the Greenlandic settlements until roughly 2005 have recently, for a number of reasons (including government policies focussing on a few growth centres), changed into a decline of the population in the settlements.
- 15.
- 16.
The Arctic Human Development Report was endorsed by the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG) and published in 2004.
- 17.
The United Nations’ Human Development Indicator is an index including indicators of health, education and living standard (the latter measured by GDP).
- 18.
This initiative was – like SLiCA and the AHDR – endorsed by the Arctic Council’s SDWG.
- 19.
The SLiCA database and table section on www.arcticlivingconditions.org have been developed by Jack Kruse and Marg Kruse.
- 20.
The incomes include all sources of income: wages, earnings from self-employment and transfer income. The income figures are measured in USD and PPP-adjusted.
- 21.
Relative poverty was measured using the definition of EuroStat on households: ‘the households earning less than 60 % of the median income’.
- 22.
To measure absolute poverty, the US definition and standard was applied.
- 23.
We defined subsistence activities as harvesting local resources: hunting, fishing, herding, husbandry, gathering, and other harvest activities that people conduct as a non-market activity with the primary purpose of contributing harvest products to the household, to share with family and community members (including ‘meat gifts’) or to sell locally outside the market economic sector. A ‘Household Production Model’ was developed to be tried out as a part of the research effort (see Usher et al. 2003; Kruse et al. 2008).
- 24.
Unpublished paper: Are Subsistence Activities, Harvest of Renewable Resources and Herding Important to Indigenous Peoples in Modern Arctic Economies and Cultures? Presented by Poppel, B. at the IPY Oslo Science Conference 2010. June 8–12.
- 25.
‘Traditional food’ (in the English-speaking regions often called ‘country food’) is the overall term for meat, fish, herbs and vegetables harvested locally/regionally and either prepared traditionally (e.g. boiled, fried, dried or fermented), eaten raw or prepared according to more modern recipes (see e.g. Poppel and Kruse 2009). The term ‘Traditional food’ was not used as such in the questionnaire but related to what is considered ‘traditional’ in the different regions. For example: ‘Inupiat/Yupik’ food in northern Alaska and ‘Kalaalimernit’ in Greenland.
- 26.
During the colonial and postcolonial period (1721–1979) the Greenlandic language was used among Greenlanders, by the missionaries and by media (the first Greenlandic newspaper published in 1861; and Greenland Broadcasting in 1958) and was used in education with an increasing preference of the Danish language in the post-war decades of modernization. The agreement between the Danish state and Greenland about Greenlandic self-governance, followed by both parliaments’ passage of legal acts that came into force June 21, 2009, states that the Greenlandic language is the official language of Greenland and that Danish shall still be taught. Since the introduction of Home Rule in 1979, the Greenlandic language has been prioritized. Some argue ‘at the expense of learning the Danish language’, a view, which the SLiCA figures on ‘foreign language skills by age groups’ cannot refuse.
- 27.
The Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR 2004) recommended social indicators developed within a human development dimension: ‘controlling one’s own destiny’. Following this recommendation, the term ‘Control of destiny’ is applied in the organization of SLiCA tables in SLiCA Results (www.arcticlivingconditions.org). The Arctic Social Indicators Report (Larsen et al. 2010) uses the term ‘Fate control’. In this chapter the two terms are used synonymously.
- 28.
The wording of the question was: ‘How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement: So many people vote in a national election that it does not make any difference if I vote or not.’
- 29.
See Kruse (2010) for a comparative study of living conditions and quality of life among Inupiat in 1973 and 2002/2003, before and after oil extraction started.
- 30.
The exact wording of the two questions were: ‘How satisfied are you with the quality of life as a whole?’ and ‘How satisfied are you with the quality of life in this community?’ respectively. Response categories to both questions, as well as to the other questions related to satisfaction, were: very dissatisfied; somewhat dissatisfied; neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; somewhat satisfied; very dissatisfied.
- 31.
Coding the answers with the values from 1 to 5 results in an average score of 4.2 in Greenland, 4.4 in Alaska and 4.5 in Sweden.
- 32.
Possible explanations were discussed during the development of the first review of SLiCA, including differences among respondents to rate themselves ‘very satisfied’. One hypothesis was that the inclination among Greenlanders to use the Greenlandic word for ‘very satisfied’ might be smaller than using ‘very’ in English.’ (Kruse et al 2008:133). A similar hypothesis might be put forward on the different use of superlatives in towns and settlements: whereas the overall distribution of the Greenlandic Inuit being satisfied (somewhat or very) were alike at both the national and the regional level, there were differences between the part of Greenlanders in towns and settlements that were ‘very’ and ‘somewhat’ satisfied. Seemingly, the differences are not reflected in the two groups that had thought about/had not thought about moving during the last 5 years, nor among those who identified social problems. There are significant differences, though, in living standards, job opportunities and satisfaction with different public facilities, which might contribute, to different levels of satisfaction with life as whole between Greenlanders in towns and settlements.
- 33.
- 34.
In Greenland the number of indicators was 24, in Alaska 23 indicators and in Sweden 17 indicators. ‘Satisfaction with life in this community’ is not included in the regression models as it might be impacted the same independent variables that explain overall satisfaction with quality of life.
- 35.
The conclusions are based on analyses of survey data from the SLiCA database. The analyses are not yet published.
- 36.
The conclusions are based on analyses of survey data from the SLiCA database. The analyses have not yet been published.
- 37.
The question about quality of life in this community was also asked in Canada, but as the Canadian data (gathered und the act of Statistics Canada) are archived at Statistics Canada, it has not been possible to include Canadian test results on this topic.
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Acknowledgements
SLiCA was developed in partnership between the indigenous peoples’ organisations: Inuit Circumpolar Conference, ICC; Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, RAIPON; Saami Council as well as local and regional indigenous steering committees, advisory and management boards, focus groups and the SLiCA international research team. Principal investigators (2014): Birger Poppel, Cathrine Turcotte, Jack Kruse, Larissa Abryutina, Hugh Beach, Ann Raghild Broderstad, Gerard Duhaime. Other team members (2014): Bent-Martin Eliassen, Christian Jensen, Marg Kruse, Miillaaraq Lennert, Maritha Melhus, MarieKathrine Poppel, Rasmus Ole Rasmussen, Ed Ward (for a more complete list see ‘Acknowledgements’ in Poppel et al. 2007).
The data, tables and graphs in this chapter all originate from the SLiCA database constructed and developed by Jack and Marg Kruse.
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Poppel, B. (2015). Living Conditions and Perceived Quality of Life Among Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic. In: Glatzer, W., Camfield, L., Møller, V., Rojas, M. (eds) Global Handbook of Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9178-6_32
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