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Native Pathways to Education
Alaska Native Cultural Resources
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Cross-Cultural Issues in

Alaskan Education Vol. I

ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN
RURAL ALASKA: A HUMAN RESOURCES APPROACH

by

Mike Gaffney
Cross-cultural Education Development Program
University of Alaska, Fairbanks

(Ed. note: This selection is a revision of a paper presented to the Society for Applied Anthropology Conference, St. Louis, March 19, 1976.)

After years or organizing a purposeful social movement, and after years of highly astute political maneuvering within the foremost corridors of American political power, on December 18, 1971, the Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian peoples of Alaska won what is perhaps the most comprehensive and far-reaching legal settlement of aboriginal claims to land and its resources yet witnessed in the comtemporary world-the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.1 I suggest that it is not an unwarranted statement to say that only the national independence gained by African and Asian peoples through the demise of colonial regimes goes farther toward the potential achievement of political, economic, and cultural self-determination by victims of imperialistic expansion.2

In many ways it would seem reasonable to suppose that Alaska Natives possess a strongly felt bond with their ethnic cousins in the “Lower 48” and Canada due to cultural affinity and generations of shared status as disenfrancised minority groups in North American plural society. However, the issues and conditions now confronting Alaska Natives as they move systematically to implement the Settlement Act appear much more akin to the issues and conditions confronting Third World nations since independence. While the parallel cannot be stretched too far, in broad terms this comparative perspective can be outlined as follows: first, it is recognized that certain Western-style development modes such as formal academic education, impersonalized bureaucratic structuring of administrative functions, and production/investment decision-making processes must be utilized if Native communities and their members are to meet confidently and competently the complex imperatives of larger, indeed world-wide, techno-economic systems. Second, although the use of culturally alien forms may be necessary to socio-economic institution building in the modern world, these institutions will prove truly viable and enduring only if the process of their development does not destroy essential elements of the Alaska Native cultural fabric. As, for instance, African nations want their economic development to have a distinctly “African” flavor, so also do Alaska Natives seek cultural distinctiveness in their development efforts.3

In short, a crucial problem requiring investigation at this point is: does there exist such a development strategy which conceptually integrates in realistic operational terms the twin objectives of (a) building effective, contemporary economic institutions, and (b) maintaining, even enhancing, socially and psychologically significant properties of Native cultural forms? This paper makes a modest attempt to address this problem by, firstly, exploring important implications of the Settlement Act, particularly the imposition of the corporate structure as the major instrument of resource development and allocation; secondly, by suggesting how a “human resources approach” may offer a workable, more humanistic, alternative to the conventional subordination of all extra-economic concerns to the profit counting objective of corporate functioning; and thirdly, by examining the implications of education and native manpower as these relate to the total development process.

The Settlement Act: Imposed Development Imperatives

As with any historically significant legislation, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) is the product of a complex series of political negotiations worked out among special interest groups, in this case among Native leadership, the federal government, and the State of Alaska.4 Moreover, within each of these more discernable interests there existed divergent sub-interests which were also constantly maneuvering for political leverage. It is therefore not surprising that the end result is a lengthy document containing much vague and compromising language which continues to generate politico-legal conflict in the post settlement period. Any attempt to extract “essential characteristics” for analysis will consequently run the risk of ignoring, or at least oversimplifying, a number of important issues.5 Nevertheless, within the limited context of this paper there are two imperatives imposed by ANCSA which have direct implications for self-directed economic development-the corporate structure and the problem of time.

The key provisions of ANCSA conveyed to Alaska Natives 40 million acres of land to be selected by them from larger tracts of land withdrawn by the Secretary of the Interior from areas not previously owned by the federal government, the State, or private interests. In addition, just under 1 billion dollars is to be paid into the “Alaska Native Fund” according to a specified timeline. Responsibility for payment into the “Fund” is almost equally divided between the federal government and the State, with the latter obtaining its revenue for payment from a 2% royalty levied on exploitable mineral resources found on federal and State lands in Alaska. In return, of course, Alaska Natives give up legal right to any further pursuit of aboriginal land claims.

To implement the Settlement Act-that is, to receive and distribute both the money and the land among legally entitled claimants-provision was made for the establishment of 12 Native regional profit-making corporations. The geographical boundaries of these corporations approximate those of pre-ANCSA Native associations originally organized to serve politically areas populated by peoples sharing similar cultural styles and language. Within an area served by a regional corporation, there exist a number of Native villages which also have had to incorporate as profit or non-profit corporations. The village corporations, on the advise and consent of the parent regional corporations, select 22 million of the allotted 40 million acres to which they are granted surface rights while the regional corporations retain sub-surface rights. During the five years following enactment, regional corporations must distribute no less than 10 percent of all funds to shareholders as dividends and no less than 45 percent of all funds to village corporations in the respective regions, with the amount increasing to 50 percent thereafter.

As with any business corporation, both regional and village corporations are governed by State regulatory laws of incorporation and operation which control the issuance of stock, payment of dividends, financial accountability, the rights and privileges of stockholders, and procedures for the election of members to the board of directors. Regional corporations may engage in all production/investment profit-making activities usually associated with corporate functioning; however, only upon approval of plans by the parent regional corporation can a village corporation receive “Fund” monies to engage in such activities.

On the other hand, Native corporations are obviously unlike other corporate enterprises by having received initial capital and land ownership through federal legislation. But they are different in one other very important respect-stock cannot be voluntarily purchased nor alienated. Upon enrollment in a Native corporation, the member stockholder receives 100 shares of common stock, the rights to which cannot be sold or transferred, except through inheritance to another Native, until 20 years after the enactment date. During this 20 year period only Natives have voting rights except in the case of a non-Native custodian of a stockholder who is a minor.

The two critical development imperatives imposed upon Alaska Natives by ANCSA may be summarized at this point. First, Native corporations have just 20 years to pursue “Native” socio-economic development without fear of take-over attempts by powerful non-Native economic interests. Since Native regional corporations are already the largest land owners in Alaska outside of the State and the Federal government and possess the capital to exploit lucrative investment opportunities throughout the financial world, it would be indeed naive to think that outside economic interests will not be anxiously sitting on the sidelines waiting for the 20-year non-alienation provision of the Act to run its full course.6 This timeline condition cannot help but lend an extraordinary sense of urgency to building not only economic structures which prove currently viable, but which will also, in the longer run, become socially and culturally “institutionalized” to the extent that these outside economic forces will have considerable difficulty penetrating the membership for purposes of gaining controlling interest.

Second, the corporate structure as the major vehicle for implementing Native regional development is a given; it is, by law, an imposed organizational imperative that cannot be structurally changed. While it may be a very effective instrument for accumulating capital and managing income-maximizing production/investment activities, it is, almost by definition, antithetical to formulating in operational terms a development strategy capable of giving equal consideration to those extra-economic “human” variables so intimately related to socio-economic change processes. It can oftentimes be observed that Native decision-makers at both the regional and village level express grave concern about involving their communities in economic projects having obvious profit potential in conventional corporate terms because of the disruptive social and psychological conditions such projects are likely to generate. This hesitation strongly suggests that the ultimate question being struggled with is, what kind of society do we want in 20 years? as opposed to simply, how large will be the bottom-line figure of our corporate accounting ledger in 20 years? Obviously the “bottom-line” is important and will continue to be important since a solid capital base and management structure are requisite to successful corporate performance. But what of the other, larger question? It is in the addressing of this question that the search begins for an alternative development strategy which does not allow the all-consuming profit motive of the corporate system to inhibit broader, more “quality of life” oriented institution building efforts.

The Human Resources Approach: An Alternative Development Strategy

Early in this paper I noted that, despite imposed legal imperatives, the problematic issues challenging Native Alaskan self-directed economic development parallel issues challenging Third World decision-makers. The generic issue from which most other issues seem to spring is contained in the conceptual debate over allocating scarce resources for “economic growth” or for “economic development.” Following Robinson’s distinction, “economic growth” is defined as “increases in aggregate product, either total or per capita, without reference to changes in the structure of the economy or in the social and cultural value systems,” whereas “economic development” is defined as “including not only growth but also social and cultural changes which occur in the development process.”7 What brought about this debate was the rapid realization that after more than a decade of energetic attempts at “economic growth,” essentially two phenomena are taking place: (a) Third World nations are falling farther behind the industrialized nations in such aggregate product categories as GNP and per capita income, and (b) the placing of top priority labels on those capital formation activities generally advocated by “growth” oriented theories (i.e., emphasis on industrialization and associated urban-based service centers and labor force) are resulting in even greater structural inequities between the minute percentage of the population benefiting from this economic orientation and the massive percentage of the population who are not.8 Succinctly put, the central query this evidence raises is, what is so especially significant and absolute about aggregate statistical measures as yardsticks for planning and evaluating economic “progress”? The answer being given by a number of contemporary students of Third World development is: not much, unless one is satisfied with trading off the possible emergence of an equitable socio-economic opportunity structure through a balanced, more stable-albeit slower-development process for industrial growth which is usually accompanied by uncontrolled urbanization, domination by foreign owned enterprises, and the evolution of a two-dimensional class system.

In forging the parallel with native regional development, it becomes readily apparent that as business corporations determine their “economic growth” by counting assets, nations determine their “economic growth” by continually measuring gross production and per capita income. In both cases, the paramount objective is “income maximization,” but not economic development as defined above. Going one step further, the concept of “economic development” can be operationalized by suggesting that at its heart is the working principle of “human resources maximization” not income maximization. Even the industrial nations are beginning to show signs of recognizing that an inherent problem with these conventional definitions and measures of so-called economic progress is that human resources and the socio-physical environment in which they are nourished become secondary concerns, and perhaps this strategy does not make much sense since, ultimately, nations, regions, communities, et cetera, are social units comprised of human beings.

Indeed, through its development of a techno-scientific ethos and method, Euro-American culture may be characterized as having done very well in harnessing the physical environment for purposes of material power and convenience. In the process, however, the price paid has been high as witnessed by increasing problems of social alienation in mass society and abuse of non-renewable natural resources. When Alaska Native spokesmen say, “please try to fathom our great desire to survive in a way different from yours, the message is clear that, for them, the price tag on “economic growth” is intolerable.9

The scholar who has done the most work in conceptualizing the human resource approach to economic development and specifying the policy considerations embodied therein is Frederick Harbison. In his Human Resources as the Wealth of Nations, he sets forth the following thesis:10

Human resources-not capital, nor income, nor material resources-constitute the ultimate basis for the wealth of nations. Capital and natural resources are passive factors of production; human beings are the active agents who accumulate capital, exploit natural resources, build social, political, and economic organizations, and carry forward . . . development.

Further, he defines “human resources” as the “energies, skills, talent, and knowledge of people which are, or which can or should be, applied to the production of goods or the rendering of useful services.”11 He strongly suggests that, along with the aggregate economic measures of increasing wealth, equally important “human” indices of development progress are those which account for educational, nutritional, and health care development. In ranking a combination of twenty-five industrial and Third World Nations, he in fact found that the latter were doing better on the human resources indices than might be expected from just an examination of the Gross National Product index.12 In essence, then, the broad policy goals of the human resource development strategy are: (a) the attainment of an economic opportunity structure capable of providing full, useful employment; (b) achievement of a more equitable resource allocation among the different social and geographical sectors of society; and (c) the development of all forms of productive human potential through full utilization of non-formal as well as formal educational processes. It is important to note that nowhere in these goals does it say that the object is to build a “rich” society in the materialistic sense or to establish a welfare-based economic system; the emphasis is on productivity (whether in the subsistence sector or the monetary sector or in both) and equity.

In analyzing the challenges of Native regional development in Alaska from the human resources perspective, there emerge a number of considerations which do not fit the conventional model of corporate decision-making. To begin with, it is more fruitful to view Native corporation membership as “constituents” to be served rather than as simply stockholders whose sole interest is in the profit and loss column and subsequent size of dividends. If this discussion has meant anything so far, it is that regional development is not necessarily synonymous with corporate growth. With the exception of several corporations serving sizable Native populations in urban Alaska, the bulk of membership exists in small village communities, most of which are accessible only by air or, during ice free seasons, by boat, and which carry on a mixture of traditional subsistence living and participation in the larger cash economy. Consequently, their expectations of what “services” the corporation should provide fall strongly on the side of the human resources dimension of development. Along with their elected leaders in the formal political arena, they expect their corporation’s officials to act in their behalf on a variety of issues affecting their daily lives such as federal and State wildlife management, land use planning, and public easement proposals. In the very first sentence of his annual message to stockholders, John Schaeffer, President of the Northwest Alaska Native Regional Corporation (NANA), points out that, “protecting the natural resources of our region from those who would build roads or regulate resource use to our detriment has occupied many hours of our time.”13

Moreover, when taking the “constituency” approach, the localization vs de-localization of corporate resources becomes a significant issue. Recalling that a major objective of the human resources strategy is the attainment of full, productive employment, it follows that corporate decision-makers should favor investments which further the development of an economic occupational structure within the region. Although such investments may prove financially marginal for a period of time, they can, with thoughtful long-range planning, provide the foundation for a more self-sufficient economy having important social and cultural as well as economic benefits. Working from hardline investment management criteria, NANA Corporation’s reindeer breeding business or the purchase by a coalition of Southwest Native Corporations of the Peter Pan Fishing Company, an enterprise dependent upon a high-risk commercial fishing operation, would probably get low marks. But from the human resource perspective the crucial point is that while these activities may never prove extraordinarily profitable, they directly speak to historic economic concerns of the constituency-concerns having both practical and symbolic cultural content.

Given the investment monies made available by ANCSA and the large number of “blue chip” investment opportunities existing throughout the financial world, there cannot help but be a strong temptation among Native corporation leadership to exploit these opportunities beyond the capital formation needed for regional development. While the collecting of such investment portfolios may be a sound corporate growth tactic and result in larger dividends for shareholders, it can, if carried to extremes, divert concentration from developing a self-directed, constituent-oriented economic structure within the region. This de-localization of resources can have the further dysfunctional consequences of severely limiting membership participation in, hence identification with, their corporation’s activities. If it reaches a point where the single link a majority of the membership has with the corporation is the receipt of dividends, these dividends will have no more significance then welfare assistance checks. And when the non-alienation clause elapses in 1991, the membership will be highly susceptible to outside interests seeking purchase of their stock.

The need to seek a balance between corporate growth and regional development is well understood by a number of Native corporation leaders. A Fortune magazine article observed that even with the business boom accompanying the trans-Alaska pipeline, Doyon Ltd., the Interior Athabascan regional corporation, has not been aggressive in exploiting investment opportunities. According to the article, Doyon’s chairman, John Sackett, and his staff explained this lack of aggressiveness by indicating that “whatever businesses they get into must, among other things, provide jobs and middle-management training opportunities for Doyon’s stockholders.” It was also noted that Sackett sees Doyon as not providing “much of a return to its stockholders through conventional means” for a number of years, but that the creation of a “$10,000-a-year job for a stockholder would represent a pretty fair return for him.”14 On the other hand, Northwest Arctic Native Association has been more aggressive in developing corporate enterprises, but with deliberate concentration on regional development. They have purchased a long-standing jade mining operation, built a large modern hotel in Kotzebue, and started a construction and supply company which is already actively engaged in village construction projects.15

When discussing the localizing of resource allocation, there is another significant level of the issue to be addressed. This has to do with the concentration of development programs in those towns which have historically evolved to serve the various regions as commercial-transportation centers. Because they already possess to some degree the necessary factors of an economic infrastructure, a multi-skilled population base, and ready access to outside resources, “urban villages” such as Bethel, Barrow, Ft. Yukon, Nome, Kotzebue, and Dillingham are in natural positions to experience the direct as well as indirect social and economic consequences of accelerated Native development efforts. These factors make easy the argument for establishing in regional centers the major administrative agencies responsible for implementing development throughout the regions (i.e., the offices of Native corporations, of Native nonprofit associations working in the areas of health, education, and cultural affairs, and of regional school districts). From the perspective of a “people-oriented” development strategy, however, it would prove highly counterproductive if the greatest share of the regions’ economic activity and associated occupational opportunity structure also became lodged in these towns at the expense of the surrounding villages.

What must become a major objective of Native corporate strategy is an exercising of the production/investment function in a manner that systematically slows the urbanization process by promoting regionally balanced, village-focused development. As alluded to earlier, nothing is more destructive to the socio-cultural fabric of traditional, small scale societies nor more readily leads to feelings of powerlessness and normlessness among their members than to be caught in the maelstrom of growth-oriented industrial urban processes. The social pathology of alienation-i.e., powerlessness and normlessness-as manifested by increased incidences of crime, suicide, alcoholism, and estranged family relationships appears to almost universal among large segments of urbanizing populations, whether in New Delhi, in Chicago, or in Nome, Alaska. Indeed, from the human resources perspective, measuring manifestations of alienation in the planning and evaluating of economic development is as vital as the measuring of assets and liabilities.

An excellent example of village focused economic development is the recent grant received by Mauneluk Associates, a Native non-profit corporation, from the Economic Development Administration to build snowmobile repair garages in five Northwest Alaskan villages. During the winter these garages will be used to shelter and repair snowmobiles, and during the summer they will function as repair centers for outboard motors and city-owned equipment.16 Coupled with small engine repair courses offered on-site, this kind of development effort not only expands village employment opportunities, but as repair skills and parts inventories increase, there will also occur a lessening of new snowmobile purchases, thus a lessening of the costly dependency villagers presently have on external distribution centers. And it is by no means inconceivable that in the process of developing this small scale village industry, some energetic, innovative person will produce a snowmobile design well adapted to punishing subsistence activity to replace the current models mass produced for less punishing recreational activity.

After years of intrusion by Western institutions there is perhaps nothing about contemporary Native village life which can be considered culturally pristine. Nevertheless, it is still at the village level where the potential most strongly exists for building productive socio-economic relationships which are-and, again, this is the essence of the human resources approach-equitable, self-sufficient, and culturally appropriate. What must be recognized is that these relationships can only develop and endure where there continues to reside a cultural disposition possessing, firstly, some historical sense for the fragility of man’s relation to the environment and the limits to which this relationship can be exploited for material gain. And secondly, a traditional structuring of decision-making and problem solving processes on such a small scale plane that the dominant social dynamic is not the alienation of man from his society and his work; instead, through the identity and security offered by day-to-day immersion in kinship bonds, familiar communication patterns, and in a subsistence lifestyle providing a worthy alternative to excessive dependence on the cash economy, what comes to pass is an integration of man with his society and work. Going back to John Sackett’s observation that a $10,000 per year job should represent a fair return to a Doyon Ltd. stockholder, we might ask: would that stockholder like a choice between a $10,000 per year job within a depersonalized technocratic social order, or perhaps a $5,000 per year job in a familiar, personalized environment to complement an active subsistence lifestyle?

Finally, to maintain that regional development strategies should give precedence to the enhancement of village life is not solely based on the argument for humanized, culturally appropriate economic activity, but also on the argument that, in the long run, it is small scale social systems which may have the best chance to achieve economic survival in this world. Observing what he feels to be the fatal contradiction inherent in the relationship of today’s large scale economic systems and consumption patterns to the environment they relentlessly exploit, EF. Shumacher states an obvious but as yet unheeded proposition: 17

. . . that economic growth, which viewed from the point of view of economics, physics, chemistry and technology, has no discernible limit, must necessarily run into decisive bottlenecks when viewed from the point of view of the environmental sciences. An attitude to life which seeks fulfillment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth-in short, materialism- does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited. Already, the environment is telling us that certain stresses are excessive. As one problem is being ‘solved,’ ten new problems arise as a result of the first ‘solution.’

Beyond Technics: Educational Implications of the Human Resources Approach

Before proceeding, I would like to capsulize the major threads of the discussion so far by suggesting that the human resources approach to economic development in rural Alaska offers, in Ali A. Mazrui’s terms, a way to “decolonize the process of modernization without ending it.”18 It does this by proposing strategies for structuring the production/investment function and the accompanying occupational opportunity system from a perspective which reconciles the twin development goals of (a) achieving a capability for purposefully dealing with the larger techno-economic forces of the corporate world on an equitable, self-sufficient basis with (b) the desire to have the emerging human institutions prove compatible with cultural and environmental conditions of Native life. While the Land Claims Settlement Act provides the potential for achieving economic self-determination, it is argued here that actual self-determination (i.e., decolonization) can more fruitfully be attained through a synthesis of the two sets of needs as provided by the human resource approach to the Act’s implementation. Fundamental to this synthesis is the notion that it is human resources rather than the passive production factors of natural and capital resources which constitutes the ultimate wealth of a society. In the final analysis, the “real bottom-line” is people, for it is people who plan, organize, and carry out economic development; and it is also people who must bear all the consequences generated by the kinds of socio-economic relationships their creations inspire. With this framework in mind, I will now turn to the educational implications of the human resource approach for the recruitment and training of that manpower most obviously destined to be “prime movers” (or prime obstructors) of the development process.19

ANCSA, with its developmental imperatives of the corporate structure and the 20 year timeline, imposes the urgent need for a dramatic increase in the number of Native Alaskans having those qualifications usually associated with baccalaureate and graduate degree programs. The wide range of high-level manpower categories and occupational roles these economic imperatives call for is well enumerated by others.20 Suffice it to say here that the people who acquire these academic and technical proficiencies will occupy strategic decision-making positions affecting the course of Native social, cultural, and economic development, whether with Native regional or village profit corporations, regional or tribal non-profit associations, statewide Native organizations such as the Alaska Federation of Natives or the Alaska Native Foundation, or with the recently formed regional school districts and the Rural Educational Affairs Division of the University of Alaska.

I have elsewhere defined “strategic decision-making” positions as entailing both policy-making “heroic” roles and policy implementing administrative-technocratic roles. While a Native graduate may not become directly involved in the “processes that legitimate proposals for (regional) action,” he most assuredly will be involved in the “processes that realize or frustrate the actualization of policy.”21 In either case, he will have thrust upon him decision-making responsibilities that directly play on the operation of development programs. It is one thing to formulate a comprehensive development perspective and attendant strategies, but quite another thing to have these programs reach fruition-a condition as dependent on the aggregate efforts of teachers, accountants, biologists and geologists as on the individual efforts of the corporation president, the politician, or the school superintendent.

It must be remembered, however, that as these decision-makers go about the day-to-day business of applying their acquired expertise to the “technics” of economic development (that is, highly specialized knowledge rationally and efficiently applied to highly technical problems), by the very nature of this application they will at the same time be having a continuous impact on the social and cultural institutions in their respective regions and villages.22 Moreover, because of their proven success with the “system” of Western formal education, they will no doubt be expected to participate actively as members of boards and committees governing a proliferating number of programs generated by the self-determination movement (e.g., school boards, village and city councils, profit and non-profit corporation boards, policy councils for field-based University programs, and advisory groups to federally funded educational programs such as JOM, Indian Education Act, et cetera). Observing formal decision-making processes in rural Alaska, one is constantly aware of the demands placed upon a small cadre of talented, energetic Native people who have felt compelled to greatly overextend their time and efforts by participating, in many cases, on three or four such policy making bodies simultaneously. Hopefully, the alleviation of Native manpower underdevelopment will also go far towards alleviating this overextension of strategic policy making responsibilities by the few.

The point is that the high-level Native manpower being trained for eventual return to their communities will not only function as principal movers of economic development, but also as principal “culturemakers”-a role synthesis paralleling the twin development goals of the human resources approach.23 It therefore becomes essential that the process and content of their education go beyond technics to include the kinds of reflective and practical learning requisite to being successful synethesizers of these goals. The question now is, what might this requisite educational experience look like?

Drawing on the writings of the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, Norman Chance has outlined, in my estimation, the kind of educative process most likely to produce “successful synthesizers” of Native development goals. Acknowledging the “importance of cultural influences,” Chance nevertheless holds that “the history of human development suggests that man desires to be more than what he is now and, furthermore, that he has the capability of transforming his existing world in a direction that he deems important.”24 Using Freire’s own words, “he can undertake to change what he has already determined” by means of his “praxis.” This “praxis” may be viewed as an inherent intellectual capability for combining reflective thought and action, for testing theory through practice which, for Chance is “what true learning is all about.” However, there is a point at which “knowledge gained through theory and practice” becomes antithetical to true learning. This occurs when the educational process becomes so thoroughly institutionalized that it “overdetermines” the learner, conditioning and defining “his cognitive meanings and actions-what many anthropologists refer to as culture.”

As we know it, the most prominent form of this “overdetermination” is the formal educational system. Because this most important aspect of contemporary human socialization has become institutionalized as a complex bureaucratic structure which, like all bureaucracies, has a compelling tendency to be “variable reducing” since its own self perpetuation hinges on strict conformity to standardized, culture-specific behavioral norms, what Freire views as the “banking concept” of education has become its basic modus operandi. For him, formal education is, by and large:25

. . . an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the ‘banking’ concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in the last analysis, it is men themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system .

Now, if one accepts that the “banking” method of education runs counter to thoughtful inquiry generally, the prevalence of its use in multi-cultural Alaska must be considered deadly. Wherever one wishes to look in the world today, formal institutions of higher education are direct imitations of the Western model. It is therefore not surprising that, despite the non-Western cultural context in which many of these institutions are found, their principal function continues to be the accumulation and transmission of presumably “superior” technics of Western civilization and the cultural value assumptions which legitimize these technics.26 Given life-long subjection to a formal educational system, the total environmental press of which proclaims universality for the rational, scientific virtues of a growth-oriented technocratic social order, most all of us-Native and non-native alike-who have been “processed” through universities and colleges are “overdetermined” to define our reality in terms of the how to? dimension of our technical training to the virtual exclusion of the for what? dimension. And it is precisely the latter dimension which moves us to ask, to what kind of society do we really aspire? And if the society we envision is not to be a replicate of the growth-oriented model, in what ways can technics be applied so that it is indeed different?

This dimension can only be included when the banking concept is displaced by a “problem-posing” pedagogy. Through a weaving of theory and practice. Chance sees this approach as challenging students to inquire critically into the very reality they are studying, to engage in a “deconditioning process of first asking questions about (one’s) conditioning and secondly questioning the conditions themselves.” This approach develops as one stands back and looks at one’s self in relation to the external world and asks “am I an object of someone else’s history or life pattern? Or am I a subject of my own history, a self-determining person?” By “reflecting upon this dichotomy of self as object and self as subject and the external realities with which they intertwine,” a deepening of “one’s self-perception and social awareness can be undertaken.” But as Chance also suggests, “reflection, by itself, is not enough (for) effective learning only comes about through the combined process of reflection and action-action which-brings about a reaction from others, which in turn stimulates further reflection.”27 However, the education of development synthesizers requires that at some point in the learning process Freire’s and Chance’s emphasis on the singular (“I,” my, one s, self ) must be complemented by an equal emphasis on the plural (“we,””our,””us”), for the conditions these synthesizers must critically address throughout their occupational careers are not just their own realities but the realities with which members of their respective communities live generally.

The concept of “reality” and its relation to a person’s life-situation and life-chances should also be clarified at this point. There are two levels of reality to be critically dealt with by students and instructors together. The first is the social, cultural and environmental conditions comprising the immediate milieu of the student and against which the testing of theory and reflection is most easily accomplished. The second and much more elusive level is that of the larger, unseen realities of political and economic forces which shape this immediate milieu. The cruel fact is that many of the realities which, in the final analysis, truly determine our lives may not be located within our life space, but rather in Anchorage, Juneau, Seattle, Dallas, or Washington, D. C. and with the imposition of the corporate structure, the determining forces for rural Alaskans may soon be even further afield in Zurich, Tokyo, and Bonn. Any problem-posing educational process must deal with both levels; yet only when a person has grasped the realities within which he or she is immersed can that person begin to make sense of the larger realities and their implications for the immediate milieu.

What must be fully understood is that by the very nature of the specific technical competencies this high-level manpower acquires and, more importantly, the process through which this acquisition is made, it becomes exceedingly difficult for them (or anybody) to maintain reasonable identification with the way rural Native “constituencies” define and deal with their realities in everyday life. However, this identity link is most likely to be maintained when the learning experience continually challenges students on the what for? as well as the how to? dimensions of their eventual roles as strategic decision-makers in the rural development process.

Within the framework of degree-oriented formal education in rural Alaska, the basic thrust of the “problem-posing” approach-critical inquiry into the very reality of our life situation by testing theory through practice and combining reflection with action-can most readily be accomplished through a field-based educational delivery system of the type described by Barnhardt in this volume. To be sure, such a system cannot ignore the formalized functions of specific degree requirements, grade point averages, and faculty qualifications; it would be foolhardy to do so since the larger development imperatives dictate that many of the technics these functions legitimize must be mastered.28 Nevertheless, the very fact that the educational process is field-based makes it much more amenable to the problem approach than does the traditional campus-based situation. Most significantly, it does not physically disengage the learner from his own and his community’s reality, that is, the reality to be examined critically. But along with continuous immersion in reality, there is the issue of how this reality is to be “critically examined.” Given that, at least for the foreseeable future, program instructors are likely to be non-native, it is essential that every effort be made to structure the formal curriculum and tuition process in a manner that takes full advantage of the “expertise” students possess of the unique cultural and environmental conditions within which the mastered technics must be applied. While it may be presumed that instructors are well versed in specific disciplines, it cannot be presumed that they are fully aware of the conditions under which their academic and technical dispensations will be learned and applied. Whenever possible, therefore, the banking concept of education (of which the current competency-based teacher education programs are a prime example) should be studiously avoided.

There are of course certain bodies of specific technical knowledge that can only be transmitted by direct communiques from instructor to student. But if “critical inquiry” is to be sustained throughout the educational experience, the fundamental principal of curriculum development must be the search for learning frameworks which avail students every opportunity to test learned theories and individual reflections against the different levels of reality with which they must continuously deal. The banking concept of education must be considered arrogant and presumptuous in a cross-cultural context. The very minimum such a context suggests is a reasonable “two-way communication flow,” a condition upon which the problem posing approach is premised.29 Ultimately, the entire ethos of any field-based degree program in rural Alaska should be premised on the two-way communication flow, from recruitment of both instructors and students to the actual delivery of the program itself (see Barnhardt, this volume).

Moreover, in keeping with the village focused strategy of the human resources approach to economic development, field-based university degree programs must also be village focused. To establish university community colleges, learning centers, et cetera, in regional urban villages is not enough, for there is an extraordinary number of talented, motivated people living in smaller villages who, for reasons of family and community obligations, cannot take extended periods of time for study away from home. And if we accept the notion that the enhancement of village life holds the key to eventual achievement of the twin development goals, and if we accept the notion that the high-level manpower best able to accomplish a synthesis of these goals will have maintained a personal link with “reality” throughout their educational experience, then we must accept the possibility that overall development ‘progress” may well hinge on how many of these people are provided the opportunity for a problem-posing, reality testing higher educational experience.

At the present stage of economic and educational development in rural Alaska, there are two spheres of technics which desperately require immediate infusion of Native professional manpower, and which readily lend themselves to the field-based problem approach. The first of these is teacher education. With the dismantling of the Alaska Unorganized Borough and BIA school systems in favor of local control through regionally elected school boards, there is greater opportunity than ever before for Native Alaskans to decolonize the schooling of their children. But as many Third World countries have experienced, cultural independence does not automatically follow from political independence. For Native education, Mr. Eben Hopson addresses the issue directly when he questions whether Native people can exercise true “political control” over the educational process without also attaining “professional control” (see Hopson, this volume). He states:

Today, we have control over our educational system. We must now begin to assess whether or not our school system is truly becoming an Inupiat school system, reflecting Inupiat educational philosophies, or, are we in fact only theoretically exercising “political control” over an educational system that continues to transmit white urban culture? Political control over our schools must include “professional control” as well, if our academic institutions are to become an Inupiat school system able to transmit our Inupiat tradition, values, and ideals.

It is not enough, however, that more Native teachers are produced through the same educational process that produces teachers in the United States generally. I think Mr. Hopson would agree that, while it is certainly a large step in the right direction, to be Inupiat does not necessarily guarantee that a teacher is going to seek energetically to frame learning experiences in accordance with Inupiat values and traditions, especially if he or she is a product of the urban-based banking approach prevalent among institutions of higher education today. The power of Western higher education to co-opt the values and aspirations of non-Western peoples is succinctly stated by Masrui:30

University graduates in Africa, precisely because they were the most deeply Westernized Africans, were the most culturally dependent. They have neither been among the major cultural revivalists nor have they shown respect for indigenous belief systems, linguistic heritage, modes of entertainment of aesthetic experience. The same educational institutions which have produced nationalists eager to end colonial rule and to establish African self-government have also perpetuated cultural colonialism.

I don’t think it is overstating the case to say that the education of Native teachers is a critical ingredient to the total process of Native human resource development, for it is they who will “constitute the largest group of prime movers of innovation (and who) are the ‘seed corn’ from which new generations of manpower will grow.” 31 There is no question but that with all the new elements entering the Native Alaskan educational scene, from the manpower requirements called for by ANCSA to the struggle for real local control and the development of small high school programs for rural villages, new ways of looking at the whys and hows of education-i.e., innovativeness-are essential.

The second sphere of technics demanding a dramatic increase in Native professional manpower and which lends itself both to a field-based educational delivery system and a problem-posing approach is business administration. Paralleling the student of education who constantly tests learned theory and method in the real world of his community and its school, so also can the student of business administration. As many of the realities of being an educator in rural Alaska are not located on urban campuses, neither are the realities of managing regional and village enterprises during a period of intense socio-economic change. Reviewing the present requirements for a bachelors degree in business administration from the University of Alaska, with its optional areas of concentration in management, finance, marketing and tourism, there appear to be few, if any, specific technics that cannot be attained in a field setting.32 Of course students may reasonably be required to enroll several semesters or summers on campus during their four year program to take advantage of library and other faculty resources. But the bulk of their study should consist of courses designed to allow maximum field-based application of principles and concepts through internships, practicums, research projects, et cetera. I would suggest, however, that if such a business administration degree is to address adequately the conditions of development and change in rural Alaska, two elements must be incorporated into the curriculum directly.

The first concerns the aforementioned notion of the “culture making” role inherent in the application of learned technics to the planning and managing of development efforts. This notion strongly implies that students pay attention to systematic ways of assessing the cultural, social, even psychological, impact new and expanded economic activities are likely to have on rural Alaskan communities.33 This specifically means attention both to these extraeconomic outcomes, usually unplanned, of production/investment decisions and, equally as important, to the social conflicts generated by corporate organizational forms confounding traditional authority structures, status attributes, and role perceptions on an increasing scale. If integration rather than alienation is to predominate in a social system, then the process by which conflicts are resolved and status and roles are allocated must be acknowledged as legitimate by members of that social system. It is precisely this process by which the social order is legitimated that gets confounded as corporate decision-making functions intrude on rural Alaskan communities, and it is precisely this confounding effect which the rural administrator, along with fulfilling his job specifications, must be ready to mediate at every opportunity.

The second element which should be an integral part of the business administration curriculum is the conservation and management of land resources. This may be incorporated as an area of concentration similar to the present areas of management, marketing, finance, and tourism, or as a highly recommended minor field. Either way, the business administration! land resource management baccalaureate program speaks to the fact that Native corporations are essentially landholding enterprises. And as such, the data-base for a disproportionate share of production/investment decisions will derive from land use planning-a technical process which presumably takes into account the ecological interaction between the surface and subsurface resources of the land and the people whose livelihood depends on these resources.

However, while the need for field-based teacher and business education may make eminent sense in terms of the argument presented here, there will continue to be a growing number of Native Alaskans who take their baccalaureate and graduate degrees in a variety of fields on campus. How, then, might their learning experiences be designed to minimize the co-optive power of Western higher education without detracting from the opportunities they have for mastering technics so obviously needed by rural Alaska development programs? Again, what is being asked for is an adequate melding of the what for? and how to? dimensions of technical and academic skill acquisition.

The most apparent structure for providing the what for? dimension to the meld at the University of Alaska is the Native Studies program. While Native students-pursue degrees with majors in such areas as biology, engineering, sociology, physics, and so forth, they might also minor in Native studies. But for Native Studies to provide the appropriate what for? dimension, it is first of all necessary that the University make a serious commitment to the concept of Native Studies by elevating the present program to degree-awarding departmental status and underscoring this commitment with adequate funding. Once achieving departmental stature, a Native Studies program can begin to develop a curriculum built around a dynamic perspective of the Native movement toward true self-determination and new forms of cultural identity. Like the human resources approach presented here, what this perspective acknowledges is that while rural life may never be the same again, it does not necessarily follow that there has been set in motion an irrevocable linear progression toward ultimate acculturation. Indeed, finding ways of conceptualizing and doing socio-economic development differently would be a focal curricular concern.

Put another way, a fully enfranchised Native Studies program might take on a consciousness-raising function, not only in terms of doing development differently along lines suggested throughout this paper but also in terms of the so-called “softer” areas of language, art, and literature. Economic and educational development in rural Alaska will not reflect a distinctly “Native” flavor unless equivalent emphasis is placed on the development of Native humanities. What I have in mind here are the themes emerging out of two recent conferences entitled, “Alaska Native Arts and Literature in the Future: Dynamic Continuity or Suppressive Fundamentalism?” and “The Native Arts of Alaska: An Exploration of Indigenous Life Value Sources.”34 In both cases the conferees moved beyond the point of the obvious need for a renaissance of traditional Native cultural expression before these traditions and their human bearers become extinct. For them, it was equally important to recognize that cultural traditions are dynamic, ever changing, and what is now needed is a new generation of bearers of expressionistic culture among all Native groups. What culture this generation will make and bear is that which they themselves create out of their own consciousness. Of Tlingit traditions, one principal organizer of these conferences, Andrew Hope III of Sitka has said:35

Change in and of itself is not valuable, but the ability to change and adapt can result in stronger people of vision. Where is the traditional Tlingit? Are we to mourn the fact that the Tlingit and their culture are not exactly as they were in 1520 A.D.? I think not. The only way the Tlingit could stay in the 1520 vacuum would be for them to exist only in a lifeless, freeze-frame museum exhibit. Holding to tradition, when tradition can not be defined, can easily be an excuse for suppressing artistic and creative development and innovation in any people’s culture. The only hold on tradition is the human mind.

Summarizing the Human Resources Approach

What this paper has attempted to convey is that, along with providing politico-legal elements for self-determination, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act has also imposed upon Native communities in rural Alaska two development imperatives-the corporate structure and the problem of time-which, together, make it extraordinarily difficult to deviate from ‘conventional, Western-style modes for planning, managing, and evaluating “economic progress.” At the same time, however, there is a growing, more strongly articulated expression of concern among Native leadership that for rural Alaska the kinds of socio-economic relationships such “progress” inexorably generates may be neither socially desirable, culturally appropriate, nor environmentally sound. The question was then raised: Does there exist an alternative strategy to corporate growth-oriented economics which adequately accounts for the imposed imperatives yet also accounts for the extra-economic “human” variables involved in institutional change processes?

Drawing from observations made of Third World nation-building efforts, it was suggested that, conceptually, the alternative may be found in the more holistic “economic development” model with its emphasis on investment decisions which result in human resource maximization as well as material resource maximization. This model is grounded in the premises that: (a) it is the energies, skills, and talents of people combined with a culturally buttressed sense of self and purpose which is the ultimate source of creative institution-building; and (b) the eventual social order envisioned is characterized by equitable and self-sufficient use of the means of production as opposed to the myopic vision of capital accumulation. Working from these premises, it was further suggested that the economic development model can be operationalized through a human resource perspective which views Native corporation enrollees as constituents to be served rather than as dividend-minded shareholders; argues for localizing resource allocation within corporate regions even though quicker, more profitable returns to investments may be located elsewhere; and cautions against concentrating economic activity in regional centers at the expense of surrounding villages where the chance for cultural continuity and economic permanence are greatest.

In keeping with the two development goals of the human resources approach, it is maintained that the education of high-level Native manpower must go beyond acquisition of technics to include the kinds of reflective and practical training requisite to becoming successful synthesizers of these goals. The key assumption here is that this educated manpower will not only function as principal planners and managers of development activities, but also as principal culture makers. By the very nature of the day-to-day application of their acquired expertise to the technics of their decision-making roles, they will simultaneously have continuous impact on the social and cultural institutions of their respective regions and villages.

In light of this dual role, it is highly questionable whether a conventional campus-based university program is the most appropriate form of higher learning for prospective prime movers of rural Alaskan development. It is suggested that by the very fact of disengaging students from the realities they must critically examine in favor of an institutionalized “banking” approach to education, they will be socialized into the how to? dimension of technics at the expense of the what for? dimension. And it is precisely exploration of the latter dimension which raises serious questions about the fit between the application of learned technics and the cultural and environmental conditions within which this application will eventually take place. What is therefore needed in a cross-cultural context is a degree awarding educational process which does not separate learner from reality and which has the capability of sustaining true reality-testing dialogue between instructor and student. It is argued that a field-based problem approach most readily accommodates this process, particularly in teacher education and business administration-two areas currently needing an immediate infusion of confident and innovative professional Native Manpower.

FOOTNOTES

  1. See Public Law 92-203, enacted December 18, 1971. As of yet, there is no comprehensive description or analysis of the “social movement” among Alaska Natives which eventually culminated in the politico-legal fact of the Settlement Act. However, some insight can be had through several works. See HG. Gallagher, Etok: A Story of Eskimo Power. New York, N.Y.: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974; and Robert Arnold, Alaska Native Land Claims (especially chapter fourl. Anchorage, Alaska: Alaska Native Foundation. 1976.
  2. As Martin Carnoy notes, “like ‘development,’ ‘imperialism’ and ‘colonialism’ are charged terms, with different meanings for different people. Perhaps the most stereotyped is imperialism. It is clearly pejorative full of political implications and ideological assumptions.” Within the context of the arguments presented in this paper, imperialism denotes a process by which any indigenous people are contacted by other people possessing superior military technology and, either violently or nonviolently, the “contact” results in the establishment of a colonial structure through which the former are politically, economically, and culturally dominated by the latter. The term colonialism usually conjures in one’s mind association between nation-states. But I hold with Carnoy that the concept of colonialism has broader application in that it refers to a structure of “relationships among people rather than nations . . . . Since human relations usually occur within the context of institutions (created and managed by people), these relations are shaped and mediated through institutional structures . . . ‘colonial’ institutions have clearly defined hierarchies: the institution defines each person’s role in an authoritarian structure and there is a great disparity between the control that various individuals have over its structure and operation.” See Martin Carnoy. Education as Cultural Imperialism. New York, N. Y.: David McKay Company, 1974, pp. 25-27. It is precisely the structuring of “control” in the relationship of Alaska Natives to the larger technoeconomic system and the cultural values which legitimate this system that leads me to emphasize the “potential” rather than “actual” implications of the Settlement Act for true self-determination.
  3. See Does One Way of Life Have to Die so Another Can Live? Art Davidson, ed. Bethel, Alaska: Yupiktat Bista, 1975.
  4. Among these special interest groups was, of course, the petroleum industry. See M. Beery, The Alaska Pipeline: The Politics of Oil and Native Land Claims. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1 975.
  5. The most comprehensive description of the organization and intent of ANCSA can be found in Arnold, op. cit. A “businessman’s” point of view on ANCSA and its implications is detailed by Phil Holdsworth in a three-part essay, Native Claims, found in the March, April, and May issues of Alaska Construction and Oil Report, 1972.
  6. The congressional intent of the 20 year timeline was to avoid “establishing any permanent racially defined institutions, rights, privileges, or obligations . . .” See Arnold, op. cit., p. 146.
  7. Sherman Robinson, “Theories of Economic Growth and Development: Methodology and Content,” in Economic Development and Cultural Change. Vol. 21: Oct., 1972.
  8. See I. Adelman and C. Morris, Economic Growth and Social Equity in Developing Countries. Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 1973.
  9. Does One Way of Life Have to Die So Another Can Live?, op. cit., p.4.
  10. Frederick Harbison, Human Resources as the Wealth of Nations. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1973, P. 3.
  11. Harbison, Ibid, p. 3.
  12. Harbison, Ibid.
  13. NANA Regional Corporation Inc., Second Annual Report. 1974.
  14. Peter Schuyten, “A Novel Corporation Takes Charge in Alaska’s Wilderness,” Fortune, October, 1975.
  15. NANA Second Annual Report, op. cit.
  16. See Tundra Times, June 30, 1976, p. 8.
  17. E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. New York, N.Y.: Harper Row, 1973, p. 27.
  18. See Ali A. Masrui, “The African University as a Multinational Corporation: Problems of Penetration and Dependency,” in Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 45, May, 1975.
  19. See Frederick Harbison, “The Prime Movers of Innovation,” in C. A. Anderson and M. J. Bowman, eds., Education and Economic Development. Chicago, III.: Aldine Co. 1965.
  20. See Judy Kleinfeld, et al., Land Claims and Native Manpower, ANF/ISEGR, University of Alaska, 1973. Also see Higher and Adult Education Needs in Rural Alaska, a Report by the Alaska Native Foundation to the Policy Council of the Alaska Native Human Resource Development Program, December, 1974.
  21. O. Marvick, “African University Students: A Presumptive Elite,” in J. S. Coleman, ed., Education and Political Development. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965, pp. 463-497. Also see, M.J. Gaffney, “Decision-Making Potential Among University Students in Kenya: Toward a Social Psychology of High-Level Manpower Development.” Paper presented to the Comparative and International Education Society, San Francisco, March 27, 1975.
  22. The term “technics” is taken from the works of Lewis Mumford. Especially see his, The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development. New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966. “Technics” refers to both the techniques (method or style of knowledge application) as well as to the actual body of specialized knowledge and the world view upon which its application is rationalized.
  23. See Norman Chance, “Modernization and Educational Reform in Native Alaska,” in J. J. Poggie, Jr. and R. N. Lynch, ads., Rethinking Modernization. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974, p. 342.
  24. Chance, Ibid. pp. 339-341.
  25. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, N.Y.: Herder and Herder, 1971, p. 58. Also see Barnhardt’s article in this volume on “Administrative Influences. . .” for a distinction between “variable reducing” and “variable generating” administration.
  26. See Mazrui, op. cit. and Carnoy, op. cit.
  27. Chance, op. cit., p. 340.
  28. When one thinks of human resource development, one would, I suspect, almost automatically think of education, particularly that type of education which has been formally institutionalized as a “schooling process” in the Western tradition. However, from the point of view of the discussion here, this type of education and human resource development are not synonymous concepts. What the human resources approach argues for is priority on investment n human capital, and as WA. Lewis observes:

    Investment in humans is not to be equated with education as normally conceived in institutional terms. The human capacity is improved by education, public health research, invention, institutional change and better organization of human affairs, whether in business or in private or public life.

    What this distinction calls attention to is the fact that human resource development is far too important to be left solely in the hands of formal schooling. However, there are certain bodies of technical/academic knowledge and skills which can most appropriately be mastered through a formal degree awarding program. What must be sorted out by managers of human resource development is: what needed skills can best be achieved through formal credit awarding programs, and what skills can best be achieved through non-formal educational efforts in which the accumulation of academic credit may be quite secondary to the immediate needs of people desiring these skills. See WA. Lewis, “Education and Economic Development” in Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 10, 1961, pp. 94-101. For an examination of the variety of uses to which nonformal education can be put, see R.G. Paulaton and Gregory Leroy, “Strategies for Nonformal Education,” in Teachers College Record, Vol. 76, May, 1975,
  29. See Bill Vaudrin, “Native/Non-Native Communication: Creating a Two-Way Flow,” in J. Orvik and R. Barnhardt, Cultural Influences in Alaskan Native Education. CNER, University of Alaska, 1974.
  30. Mazrui, op. cit., p. 194.
  31. Harbison, “Prime Movers of Innovation,” op. cit., pp. 229-230.
  32. See University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 1975-76 catalog, p. 74.
  33. See “Subsistence and Cultural Planning” in Does One Way of Life Have to Die so Another Can live? op. cit., pp. 76-80.
  34. “Alaska Native Arts and Literature. . .” convened in Sitka, Dec. 3-5, 1975, and was sponsored by the Sitka Alaska Native Brotherhood, Camp No. 1, and Sheldon Jackson College. “The Native Arts of Alaska . . .” conference convened in Anchorage, August 16-20, 1976, and was sponsored by the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Alaska Humanities Forum.
  35. Andrew Hope III, “Tradition in Tlingit Art and Literature: Suppression or Semantics?” Unpublished paper, Native Studies Program, Sheldon Jackson College, 1975.

 

 

 

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