Chapter 4 Weathering the Storm: An Indigenous Knowledge Framework of Yup’ik Youth Well-Being and Resilience in Alaska
Year: 2022
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: The Yup'ik Alaska Native world has always been a changing one, but the past century has seen not only accelerated change but an imposition of new forces transforming Indigenous landscapes and lifeways (Burch 2005;Fienup-Riordan 2000;Chance 1990; Napoleon 1996; Oswalt 2011).The swiftness and severity of the intruding colonial forces disrupted societal and relational systems and fissured people from the protective factors that once kept families and communities safe, well and strong (Berry 1985).Problems emerged that have never before been encountered.By the 1950s, family groups that once moved freely across a region the size of the state of Nevada in the lower-48 states were forced to settle into one of fifty-six village communities so that children could attend Euro-American schools (Fienup-Riordan 2000).Technologies, economies and social systems began to shift rapidly to accommodate and incorporate Western influences.Some adaptations were advantageous, such as the introduction of vaccines and Western medicines (Ayunerak et al. 2014), and others involved agency and syncretism by Yup'ik communities to incorporate elements of the new and incoming technologies and socio-cultural systems into traditional practices and belief systems (Fienup-Riordan 1991).Ultimately though, this marks a period of colonial transition where families were forced to live in settlements, children were sent out to boarding schools, and new social, economic,
Source: Berghahn Books
Author: Stacy M. Rasmus
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4398210669