Arctic Social Sciences Program | 2004 Workshop: Partnership Workshop
Partnerships Between Researchers and Arctic
Communities Session at ICASS V
Saturday, 22 May - Sunday, 23 May 2004
ARCUS partnered with the Alaska Native Science
Commission to organize a session at the fifth meeting
of the International
Congress of Arctic Social Scientists (ICASS V).
Seven collaborative partnerships, consisting of
researchers both Western and Native, were presented
as a foundation for working group discussions.
The session focused on the many productive and
collaborative partnerships between researchers and
arctic communities. Due to rapid changes in the
social and physical environments of the Arctic and
increased access to areas of the former Soviet Union
over the last decade, Arctic communities have
increasingly become the focus of research. The
research agendas are driven not only by the interests
of formal science but by arctic residents themselves.
These circumstances have led to a change from the
arctic community being an object of study to being a
full research partner with a scientific agenda of its
own.
Partnerships Between Researchers and Arctic
Communities focused on the process of
partnership: how it works, what the challenges are,
how partners complement each other, and what the
successes and failures are from each partner’s point
of view.
The workshop was held as part of ICASS V at the
University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. It was
sponsored by the NSF Arctic Social Sciences Program
and organized by a partnership between the Alaska
Native Science Commission (ANSC) and the Arctic
Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS).