Arctic Science Journeys
Radio Script
1996

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Looking for Common Ground
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STORY: Relations between the Arctic's indigenous people and scientists have never been very good. Scientists have often discounted Native knowledge and excluded them from active roles in research. As a result, many Natives are resentful of scientists and skeptical of their work.

But times are changing, and so too are scientists. Jack Kruse is a sociologist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and chair of this year's Arctic Science Conference. Kruse says the conference is not so much about research as it is about improving public relations, especially with Alaska's predominantly Native communities.

"Communities don't necessarily agree with the agenda of science or with the way that scientists go about addressing that agenda. Part of the problem is in communicating the results of research back to communities. But there's also the question of do communities support the kind of research that's going on in their backyard. I think that there's a real interest on the part of scientists on one hand and community people on the other to better understand what the common ground is."

Inupiat Eskimo Patricia Cochran is executive director of the Native Science Commission. She helped form the commission three years ago to air concerns about how science is conducted.

"I think that the Native communities is mostly looking for a little more self- determination, a little more control over what's happening to them, to their communities and to their bodies in many cases. I do feel the Native community is much more receptive to being partners. We won't hopefully have the same kind of battles that we have had in the past."

She says the commission has helped change attitudes of scientists as well.

"Personally, I think the time was right. I think that science is beginning to understand that local and traditional knowledge do have and play an important role in what they are doing. And many more of the scientists will now tell you that they rely on the elders in the community much more than they did in the past because they found them to be true and that the comments they make to be valid. The science community is more open to listening to things that are not 'hard science' as they call it, and to look at local and traditional knowledge."

The three-day conference, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, begins September 19 in Girdwood, Alaska. More than 60 speakers will lead discussions on incorporating Native knowledge into scientific research, improving communications between scientists and Natives, and the role of science in addressing emerging problems. For Arctic Science Journeys, this is Debra Damron.