Learning to Listen: Community Collaboration in an Alaska Native Village

Abstract

Eight anthropology and museum studies graduate and undergraduate students from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, who were participating in a summer field school, had traveled some four thousand miles to the Sugpiaq/Alutiiq coastal village of Nanwalek, Alaska, to participate in a three-week-long community-based collaborative project. His encouragement to go with the flow in an unfamiliar cultural setting could never match their experience of uncertainty. After a while and much to their relief, they were greeted at the airport by their hosts -- only to learn that the trail up the mountain to their cabins had been inaccessible all week due to melting snow in the mountains and the resultant mud. Before leaving Indianapolis he had met with the students to give them a brief introduction to the culture and history of the region. Having previously worked in the community on multiple environmental and cultural heritage projects with several different families and individual community members, he had already established rapport.