Photo-elicitation Interviews on Iñupiaq Conceptualizations of Nature

Participants were provided with digital cameras and instructed to take photographs of anything that captured what “nature meant to them as an Iñupiaq.” These photographs were then printed out and served as an interview guide where participants were asked: 1) To first pick out the top 5 pictures that really captured what nature meant to them as an Iñupiaq. For each of these photographs, participants were then prompted to give a short descriptive title to the photo, to generally explain what was going on in the picture, to describe what they were thinking about when they took the picture, and to discuss what it was about that photograph that really captured what nature meant to them as an Iñupiaq. 2) To then organize the remaining photographs into piles based on related themes. Each thematic group of photos was then discussed in terms of what was generally going on in each photo and how the photographs were related. 3) Several follow-up questions. Participants were prompted to provide a few short words or sentences that expressed what nature meant to them. They were also asked whether they felt that non-Natives from outside the community might think about or act differently towards ‘nature’ when compared to someone from the village. Lastly, they were asked whether they had ever heard the term “the sea is our garden” used locally, and if they were familiar with that term, what it meant to them. The goal of this research activity was to explore the worldviews and relationships to the land and sea that are part of a subsistence way of life here in the village.These perspectives are often overlooked by non-Native decision-makers who try to engage with the traditional knowledge of the Iñupiat. The general argument here is that the traditional knowledge of Native peoples is often mistranslated when it is removed from its source communities because it is divorced from the very context that gives this knowledge its true meaning and power.