Lacking a forum without social angst and posturing, superficial popular culture, free of academic constraints and editing and footnotes, I will choose to free write about what it might mean to be indigenous to Alaska, as a sort of triumvirate compendium of what has been developing over the past year or so as I learn more and more one way and another.
Western classical philosophy has been a strong subject in the hours of reading lately. Unfolding these classic scripts leads a sort of desire of mine to develop a structure of beliefs and systems of thinking as a way to move on and move forward in ‘decolonizing’ and the such. Would it really be indigenous in developing a philosophy not necessarily being connected daily and constantly with the land? I would reply the choice has never been my own in finding city dwellings as a more familiar setting than living, learning, and being on the land. Paradoxes of identity, whether personal or as a regional or a state-wide population, can be strung and fleshed out, beliefs confirmed and illogical points thrown to the wayside. Being Alaska Native means to live on the land, to be on the ocean, whether teeming with life or vastly frozen. Being Alaska Native also means people and families have moved to the cities, and living out on the land is no longer a viable option without great cost.
Another subject has been the policies and regulations surrounding federally-recognized tribal governments and Alaska Native Corporations, whether from Alaska state municipal codes, Alaska state administrations, or federal level Indian self-governance and self-determination programs. The messenger should not be harmed when he or she comes around some time and some day and announces to the less-informed public, Alaska Native Corporation shareholders, and power brokers involved behind the scenes that Alaska Native Corporations are not on the same level politically as federally-recognized tribal governments. I am not set against my own people or other regions of Alaska or to the greater organization of Alaska Native Corporations, but I do believe the legal and political status of Alaska Native Corporations should be clarified, or further clarified, as separate from federally-recognized tribal governments.
Following the legal and political status thread, subsistence in Alaska continues to increasingly befuddle and betwixt the users and the management and the public. Aboriginal hunting and fishing rights were extinguished pursuant to ANCSA of 1971, but the Department of the Interior has a fiduciary responsibility towards Alaska Native peoples to protect subsistence practices from larger commercial and sport interests. The Department of Interior directs the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs on policies and regulations for subsistence practices on federal public lands in Alaska. The Department of Commerce directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on policies and regulations for fisheries and marine mammal subsistence on the far-reaching coastlines of Alaska. Perhaps most importantly, the state of Alaska does not recognize any race-based law or policy or regulation under the state constitution. However, the legal and political status of Alaska Native subsistence practices does exist under federal law and policies and regulations, which as has been established pre-empts state law and policies and regulations. The legal and political status of Alaska Native subsistence practices does exist.
The political identity of Alaska Natives does exist. The political influence of Alaska Natives exists. The political rights of Alaska Natives do in fact exist. Out of the madness and anxiety of today and probably tomorrow, these statements are no longer so plain without an instantaneously magnetized mass of confusion.
