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Rural Alaska: The Struggle for Subsistence
Author(s) -
DiNovelliLang Danielle,
Hébert Karen
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal for the anthropology of north america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2475-5389
DOI - 10.1002/nad.12114
Subject(s) - compromise , ambivalence , subsistence agriculture , negotiation , politics , rural area , bureaucracy , character (mathematics) , political science , sociology , geography , archaeology , agriculture , law , psychology , social psychology , geometry , mathematics
“Rural” in Alaska does not mean the countryside. It is instead a bureaucratic category that both invokes and undercuts the Alaska Native territory that it has, as a result of political compromise, come to represent. As such, it has been a site of intense turmoil and negotiation since the 1970s. In this essay, we zoom in on a rural location marked by struggles to define and shape the character of the rural; in so doing, we explore the tensions embedded in this ambivalent concept.