Forgetting Freshwater: Technology, Values, and Distancing in Remote Arctic Communities

Abstract

Abstract Technology is often touted as a collective solution to environmental problems. However, what if technology results in trade-offs in long-term resilience that ultimately pose a critical vulnerability for society? In this study, we examine the change in values of freshwater from traditional to convenience-oriented values in remote, resource-dependent communities that are in the process of modernization. Individuals living in remote resource-dependent communities in Alaska were interviewed and asked a series of questions concerning their values toward freshwater and the importance of those values. As age of the individual decreased, traditional-subsistence values of water diminished, and both convenience and recreational values of water increased. Individuals from communities without municipal water systems expressed greater traditional-subsistence values and less convenience-oriented values than individuals from communities with municipal water systems. The data presented suggest that as communities increasingly adopt the dominant social paradigm associated with Western cultures, their values of freshwater change from traditional and cultural values to convenience and recreational values. The implications of this transformation in values are discussed as a form of technology-induced environmental distancing. Keywords: distancingfreshwaterresiliencesocial-ecologicaltechnology Lilian (Na'ia) Alessa and Andrew (Anaru) Kliskey are equal contributing first authors. We are grateful to the National Science Foundation (OPP Arctic Social Science number 0327296, Arctic System Science number 0328686, and International Polar Year number 0755966) for funding this research; the views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. Sean Mack helped with cartographic design. We thank faculty and graduate students at the Institute of Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia and at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University for discussion, comments, and suggestions on earlier versions of these data and ideas, and to our community collaborators in the villages of Elim, Golovin, Teller, Wales, and White Mountain, Quyana. Notes a MWS, municipal water systema. b ns, Not significant. By resilient, we mean system resilience as used by Gunderson and Holling (Citation2002): the ability of a community to perceive and adapt to change before a long-term or catastrophic disruption of supply or quality of the resource occurs. By TEK we mean "a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environment" (Berkes Citation1999, 8).