Hybrid Governance in the Arctic: Carving out a Political Space for Coastal Indigenous Communities in Arctic Emergency Preparedness and Response

This award will support the addition of two community members (one Aleut from the Commander Islands and one Inuk from Nain, Labrador) to an already planned and financed workshop set to take place in September of 2016 in Sand Point Alaska as part of a larger series of planned workshops relating to Arctic Emergency Preparedness and Response (AEPR). Financing for the larger project and workshop series comes from the University of Durham's ICE LAW project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The Co-PI, Dr. Jessica Shadian, is the Co-partner and Lead of the ICE LAW subproject: "Local & Indigenous Perspectives." The main research question of the larger project is to investigate "how and in what ways can and should coastal indigenous communities play in Arctic Emergency Preparedness and Response policy and governance." The goal of the workshop, which will be conducted through "talking circles," is to better understand what role coastal communities want to play in regional Search and Rescue policy, what they need (e.g. education, infrastructure, financing, scientific knowledge) in order to make this happen, and what issues they see as the most relevant and appropriate decision making on emergency preparedness and response programs. The ultimate goal is to address the question of how indigenous peoples can find their voice in the complex legal landscape of emergency preparedness and response; a landscape that is filled with government overlap at the domestic levels and governance gaps at the subnational, regional, international, and transnational levels. This workshop has the potential to inform the larger research project and the funding provided by the ASSP will make the workshop and the project as a whole more inclusive of ALL Arctic indigenous stakeholder communities. The outcomes of the talking circles will contribute to the longer term project goals, which includes helping to facilitate ongoing regional collaboration among local coastal communities, including the collection of baseline data (e.g. cultural mapping and Indigenous knowledge studies) and to establish and maintain monitoring systems for Emergency Preparedness and Response. In addition, the ASSP contribution will increase the participation of highly underrepresented groups in science.