Sitka Tribe of Alaska opened Native American Heritage Month celebrations last Tuesday, Nov. 3 with a presentation by Aandaxjoon Sabena Allen, PhD, on how the Tlingit people are especially able to address the effects of climate change, as they have tended to the changing land and waters of Southeast Alaska for thousands of years.
Aandaxjoon, who grew up in Sitka, is a Gaanaxteidí Raven and a child of the Kaagwaantaan clan. She completed her doctorate in anthropology this past June at the University of Chicago.
Aandaxjoon presented her doctoral thesis, “The Temporality of Haa Shuká: A Scalar Perspective on Climate Change, Lingít Knowledge, and Alaskan Identity,” in front of 12 people at Sitka Tribe of Alaska last week.
Given the historically fraught relationship between anthropology and the communities it studies – Indigenous ones in particular – Aandaxjoon said she wanted to ensure that her work in Sitka was not extractive.
Her research involved participating in and observing her own Tlingit community. She situated her study of Tlingit culture in contrast to research practices that have historically harmed, and continue to negatively affect, Indigenous communities.
Beginning with the Tlingit Raven creation stories, Aandaxjoon illustrated Tuesday how cultural evolution is a central tenet of the Tlingit people. Raven’s creation of the world, his successes and failures throughout the process and the persistence of these stories to the present day, are where the Tlingit value of adaptation comes from.
“Even in the face of settler colonialism and climate change, [Tlingit] way of life has adapted,” Aandaxjoon writes in her thesis.
She continued her presentation by exploring how Alaska is perceived in public consciousness. A realistic representation of Alaska, with its various bioregions and cultures, can aid people in creating appropriate approaches to climate change. She went on to explore three case studies of current issues in Southeast Alaska.
The first case study is the presence of cruise ships and tourism in Southeast Alaska. Tlingit culture and way of life are disproportionately impacted due to marine and geographic changes that come from the onslaught of tourism, Aandaxjoon writes, and tourism is just “simply another row in the great tapestry of settler colonialism.” Even so, Tlingit culture persists and exists amidst changing social, economic and environmental conditions.
Aandaxjoon next explored the presence of environmental researchers and their effects on the Tlingit community. Though there is often meaningful coproduction of research, more often than not, these research projects often overlook or exclude Indigenous researchers and practices.
The final case study in her dissertation was her experience with transformative scenario planning at Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP) workshops.
Deriving from the oil industry and military strategy, transformative scenario planning as Aandaxjoon describes is closely related to and developed out of settler colonialism. Nevertheless, she writes that SSP’s practice of transformative scenario planning for Southeast proved that the Tlingit worldview and way of life persist in the face of colonial ideologies.
Aandaxjoon returned to the concept of “Haa Shuká,” or “our Ancestors – past, present and future,” which is included in the title of her dissertation to represent how the methods to address climate change already exist – in place, culture and tradition.
“A lot of the solutions and things we want to be doing for climate change and Indigenous sovereignty are things that are already happening,” she said. "It's really a question of how we center these things more.”
Aandaxjoon said she's now preparing to teach interdisciplinary Indigenous Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks this spring, alongside working on a book proposal that builds on the work of her thesis.
Sealaska Heritage Institute hosted a thesis presentation by Aandaxjoon at noon today in Juneau. A recording of today's lecture is online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJFeZDsK8Ow
Iris Segal is a second-year student at Outer Coast in Sitka.
