Embodied Knowledge, Relations with the Environment, and Political Negotiation: St. Lawrence Island Yupik and Inupiaq Dance in Alaska

A whale of a time: engaging in a war of values for youth activism in science education

“…For example, the Alaska Natives worldview includes a reciprocal relationship between humans and non-human persons, or animals, which are believed to have souls, social and familial structures, and their own knowledge. They view whaling as a social relationship, an opportunity for meat sharing and subsistence, and have respect for the animal that provides this for them (Ikuta 2011 ). This is a single example of many that demonstrates a need to carefully consider and challenge the notion that Western science or ways of knowing is “right.” Many native people and other marginalized groups whose understanding of and relationship to the natural world is discounted in favor of Western views already practice something akin to an erotic ethic with the land and its inhabitants.…”

Dancing with the spirits, Act 1: ‘Being grounded and being able to fly are not mutually exclusive’1

“…It indicates that the experience of these images is coloured by the practitioner's frame of reference, and that they appear in a form that the (s)he understands. Spirits may for example refer to the deity of a local mountain (Sohei, 2011), an animal essential for the survival of the community (Ikuta, 2011), ancestors (Grau, 2015), or various goddesses including the Virgin Mary (Samuel, 2001). In other words, spirits manifest themselves differently according to context and perceiver (see also Morris, 2006: 15).…”

“…Keeney and Keeney write about this practice: ''The shaman does not literally become an animal or occupy the materiality of another body; it is the shaman's heart, via song, that becomes inseparable from the other' (Keeney and Keeney, forthcoming). 25 For this summary I drew on the work of Blacking (1985), Ehrenreich (2007), Grau (1993Grau ( : 23, 1999, Henry et al (2000: 256), Ikuta (2011), Peterson Royce (2002, Spencer (1985), Thomas (2003: 79) and Williams (2004: 5-7). While finishing my thesis, Kimerer LaMothe's work with the same title Why we dance had not yet been published (Lamothe, 2015).…”