University of SaskatchewanHARVEST
  • Login
  • Submit Your Work
  • About
    • About HARVEST
    • Guidelines
    • Browse
      • All of HARVEST
      • Communities & Collections
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
      • This Collection
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
    • My Account
      • Login
      JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
      View Item 
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item

      The Nexus Between Environmental Stress, Resource Governance and Demographic Change in Norton Sound, Alaska

      Thumbnail
      View/Open
      GANNON-THESIS-2019.pdf (7.264Mb)
      Date
      2019-09-16
      Author
      Gannon, Glenna Marie 1987-
      ORCID
      0000-0001-6635-6737
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
      Show full item record
      Abstract
      The decision to migrate is a complex and multi-faceted one. In Northern Alaska, environmental changes are occurring at an unprecedented rate, resulting in forms of stress that generate a hard decision for residents of dozens of Alaska Native communities: whether to leave home, or remain in place and cope with the changes that come. In my thesis, I explore the connections between environmental change and demographic change in Norton Sound, Alaska. Specifically, I consider how fisheries disruptions impact rural commercial fishers, using a mixed methods approach. Employing the Attachment, Alternatives, Buffering framework to analyze my data, I identify many socio-economic and environmental factors that influence how individual resource users experience and respond to sources of environmental stress. My analysis provides a better understanding of how demographic change – or the lack thereof – in rural, environmentally-threatened communities is highly influenced by resource governance and management structures, such as the Western Alaska Community Development Quota program. By better understanding these interconnections, my research demonstrates how resource governance structures can promote adaptability in rural, predominantly-Indigenous communities. My results indicate that individuals did not leave imperilled locations as a result of resource disruption, though some households are leaving now. I also found that certain resource governance structures such as the CDQ program, are influencing adaptive capacity within at-risk communities and in some cases, may actually be working produce more just and locally-appropriate adaptations to environmental stressors.
      Degree
      Master of Environment and Sustainability (M.E.S.)
      Department
      School of Environment and Sustainability
      Program
      Environment and Sustainability
      Supervisor
      Loring, Phillip A
      Committee
      Reed, Maureen G; Robson, James
      Copyright Date
      August 2019
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/12319
      Subject
      Indigenous resources users, fisheries collapse, environmental stress, mobility, out-migration, relocation, adaptation
      Collections
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      University of Saskatchewan

      University Library

      © University of Saskatchewan
      Contact Us | Disclaimer | Privacy