For the Survival of Future Generations in the Face of Climate Change: Planning for Alaska Village Migration Using Cultural Heritage Based Principles
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2020-12-11
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MA in Historic Preservation
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This work may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain information or permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Goucher Special Collections & Archives at 410-337-6347 or email archives@goucher.edu.
Abstract
Climate-induced migration has become the last resort for communities in Alaska whose
homes are threatened due to permafrost and shoreline erosion. As the indigenous youth and
future leaders of Alaska’s Federation of Natives so powerfully state, the survival of their future
generations, ways of life, traditional lands, intact ecosystems, emotional, spiritual, and mental
well-being are threatened by climate change. Communities in Alaska and around the world are
facing loss of places due to a rapidly changing earth climate system. When migration to a new
village site becomes a reality, understanding and recognizing the loss of place caused by
disrupted routines, disconnection with the natural environment and loss of identity are the
impetus for developing successful migration strategies that transfer the intangible aspects of
place to a new location.
This study posits a new preservation focus, one that services a broader agenda than
saving existing places and encompasses a more inclusive social purpose in community
migration, preserving traditional lifeways and assisting communities to self-determine their
futures. Preservationists can be advocates for communities within a proposed place-based
migration planning framework presented in this study. This treatise presents the concepts of
reflective nostalgia—internalizing and acknowledging attachment to past memories,
encounters, and traditions that were experienced in one place, and restorative nostalgia—as a
way to move with these attachments to a new site. This study recognizes that migration plans
must be cultural heritage and-place-based using restorative and reflective nostalgia as tools.
Reflective nostalgia can provide salve for remembering and help preserve the past in
preparation for restorative nostalgia to drive the creation of a new home.
Preserving place—as a way to save identity, traditions, and cultural heritage—is
examined through the experiences of four groups in North America. These profiles derive
narrative and analyze past displacements and current migrations of the following indigenous
groups: Ugiuvangmiut of King Island, Alaska, the Oujé-Bougoumou Cree of Quebec, Canada, the
Qaluyaarmiut of Newtok, Alaska, and the Isle de Jean Charles Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-
Choctaw Tribe, Louisiana.
Recommendations for how to support migration and the preservation of place are
summarized in a set of principles for various phases of planning. The principles are influenced
by the attention to culture and steps in Australia’s Burra Charter. The principles also draw upon
climate relocation research in Alaska, as well as goals for migration developed by the Isle de
Jean Charles Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe, Louisiana. The framework I propose
uses restorative nostalgia as a tool to help transfer attachment to place to a new site. This
migration framework process also includes indigenous groups taking the lead role in the
planning and implementation in major decision making.