Coastal communities are among the most rapidly changing, institutionally complex, and culturally diverse in the world, and they are among the most vulnerable to anthropogenic change. While being a driver of anthropogenic change, tourism can also provide socio-economic alternatives to declining natural resource-based livelihoods for coastal residents. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of small-scale cruise tourism on coastal community resiliency in Petersburg, Alaska. Exploring these impacts through resiliency theory’s lens of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, we employed ethnographic research methods that emphasize emic viewpoints to determine how residents see this form of tourism affecting the resiliency of valued community culture, institutions, and traditional livelihoods. Findings indicate that with purposeful engagement in niche cruise tourism involving boats with 250 passengers or less, and an active rejection of the large cruise ship industry, Petersburg exhibits increased adaptive capacity to promote the resilience of valued community institutions and heritage. This work draws needed recognition to the diversity of activities that fall under the label of cruise tourism, including the distinct implications of smaller-scale, niche cruise tourism for the resilience of coastal communities. It also highlights the need to capture emic perspectives to understand the politics of community resiliency.
The need to understand how Arctic coastal communities can remain resilient in the wake of rapid anthropogenic change that is disproportionately affecting the region—including, but not limited to, climate instability and the increasing reach of the tourism sector—is more urgent than ever. With sovereignty discourse at the forefront of Arctic sustainability research, integrating existing sovereignty scholarship into the tourism literature yields new theory-building opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to conceptually analyze the implications of (1) applying both theoretical and social movement ideas about sovereignty to tourism research in Arctic coastal communities, (2) the extent to which these ideas revolve around livelihood sovereignty in particular, (3) the influence of existing tourism development on shifting livelihood sovereignty dynamics, and, ultimately, (4) the opportunities for further research that enables more sovereign sustainable tourism development across the Arctic region. Given the northward march of the tourism frontier across Arctic regions, an exploration of tourism’s influence on sovereignty presents a timely opportunity to advance theory and promote policy incentives for forms of tourism development that are more likely to yield sustainable and resilient outcomes for Arctic communities.
The Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) is a NASA Terrestrial Ecology field campaign comprised of researchers from many disciplines and institutions who use field-based, remote sensing, and modeling approaches to understand the vulnerability and resilience of Arctic ecosystems and people in western North America. One goal of ABoVE is to provide the scientific basis for informed decision-making to guide societal responses at local to international levels, which requires knowledge of the identities and data needs of ABoVE's partners and collaborators. The research presented here sought to identify relevant existing and new communities, organizations and institutions for ABoVE products while simultaneously assessing their research needs that future ABoVE activities can meet. We report on the results of an online survey sent to all ABoVE participants, defined broadly as an individual who engages with ABoVE, to identify their most relevant research themes and activities while simultaneously asking participants to identify potential new partners and collaborators for ABoVE engagement. These results are compared with data about who has downloaded ABoVE data products from the ORNL DAAC (the designated data archive for most ABoVE data products). The analysis reveals the current relevancy of ABoVE research themes and activities to participants, identification of additional organizations for ABoVE engagement, and potential gaps between data product access, usage, and engagement with ABoVE. Results indicate opportunities to tailor to the needs of current participants and focused outreach for newly identified groups.
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