The role of culture in environmental policy: Environmental justice as seen through a case study of Alaska Native subsistence regulation

Michael William Walsh, Purdue University

Abstract

Results of a study of the role of culture in environmental policy, viewed through an environmental justice lens, are presented. The research builds upon the idea that the current environmental justice model is limited in scope. With a focus on variables of race and socioeconomic status, and on policy related to disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards and toxins, the current model fails to account for other potential variables and policy applications. This research broadens the model, to include culture as a variable in natural resource policy. A specific natural resource management policy—Alaska Native subsistence regulation—was analyzed in terms of the role culture, and cultural protection, has played in its development and implementation. The single case, qualitative case study of Alaska Native subsistence relied on analysis of historical data, personal observation, and phenomenological interviews with individuals closely connected to subsistence policy. Utilizing a “Policy-Culture Scale,” subsistence policy (state and federal), from the purchase of Alaska in 1867 to 1999, was analyzed in terms of its level of subsistence cultural protection, and whether such protections were implicit or explicit. Following these guidelines, and depending on level of cultural protection, polices are categorized with regard to the degree to which they are (or are not) environmentally just. In other words, to what extent did (or do) specific policies protect the subsistence culture of Alaska Natives? Among policies analyzed were the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) and Alaska's own subsistence law. Results indicate that, with respect to subsistence policy in particular, and natural resource policy in general, policy makers should pay more attention to the cultural impacts of policy alternatives; doing so can make a policy more environmentally just. In the case of subsistence regulation, operative tenets of environmental justice are identified which could aid in the passage and implementation of environmentally just subsistence policy. Two terms—cultural impact assessment and cultural justice—are introduced, the idea being application of the operative tenets of environmental justice beyond natural resource policy and environmental policy, to other policies removed from that arena. Directions for future research are also presented.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Bartlett, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Public administration|Ethnic studies|Cultural anthropology

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