Sealaska Heritage Institute: Temporality of Haa Shuká A Scalar Perspective on Climate Change, Lingít Knowledge, Alaskan Identity

And there are, like I said, various forms of research that attempt to address some of these issues. And so one of them is called co-production, which seeks to bring indigenous knowledge into Western scientific frameworks. And the idea is that the community and the scientists are co-producing that work. And one of the things that I was really interested in, in relation to co-production, was how even though there is that desire for this equal relationship, there are still ways in which that is undermined in practice. And one of those ways is through the assessment of how well that work is actually doing its job.

So rather than turning to the communities in a lot of cases and asking them, you know, how is this working, what does this look like, those external kind of powers are still at work. And so you have external entities like funders, universities, et cetera, that are coming in and assessing that work and saying how well it is being done, rather than this kind of stemming from community.

And this specifically strips tribes of agency and of sovereign authority within this process, because they're unable to have that ability to determine that relationship for themselves. And there are certainly alternatives to this way of doing things, and one of the ways that I talk about is instead of indigenous knowledge being brought into these Western systems, thinking about Western science and how that can be a tool in communities and how that can be directly utilized in community work in a way that almost appropriates it back Indigenous peoples. And so this is kind of another form of adaptation where we're looking at these tools, acknowledging that they can be useful, especially in the face of climate change, and then taking them on for ourselves. And so one really great example of this is the Southeast Alaska Tribal Ocean Research Lab at Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and specifically the work that they do for shellfish testing to make sure that that is safe to eat. And so essentially, traditional knowledge gives us very specific instructions about when, where, and how to harvest shellfish, but a lot of times that has become less reliable because of these climate change-induced shifts.

And so this is a way to allow that harvest and that important community relationship to continue even in the face of these ongoing changes. So again, this kind of appropriation of that tool that continues to place self-determination and agency in the hands of the tribe. Now we're going to shift to the last case study, which is focused on this transformative scenario planning process that occurred a few years ago here in Southeast Alaska. And I'm going to explain a little bit about what this process was, what it looked like. Then we're going to talk a little bit about the history of scenario planning.

And then we'll kind of shift back to the implications for the Southeast Alaska example. So essentially, this process was a collective effort to generate this document, which is called Possible Futures for Southeast Alaska, and it is 4 fictional scenarios that were created that are meant to be plausible and challenging and really push people to think outside of the box. So thinking beyond what we might imagine— initially imagine as how the future could look in order to better assess assist with strategic planning. And this process, um, brought together about 30+ people from around the region in Southeast Alaska. I was one of those people.

It took place from January through April of 2024. So there were two in-person multi-day workshops. One was in January in Saxman, one was here in Juneau in March, and then it culminated at the Sustainable Southeast partnership spring retreat, which was in April of 2024 in Sitka. And, um, there were— between those different meetings, there were— there was also kind of asynchronous and virtual work that was being done, again, to kind of collectively create these documents. And because climate change is so essential in this region, a lot of them had to do with kind climate futures and different ways that this could go depending on various factors, both externally to the region and then also internally.

So with that in mind, I'm gonna talk a little bit about this broader methodology and where it actually came from. So scenario planning, which is distinct from transformative scenario planning, and we'll hear why, actually emerged from work done by the oil company Royal Dutch Shell. So in the 1960s, futures thinking was very popular, especially the idea of multiple futures rather than one singular future. So the idea that this needed to be kind of considered, imagined, calculated. And an innovator in this field was Herman Kahn.

He wrote about nuclear war and fallout, among other things. And Shell sent one of their employees, Pierre Wack, to learn this methodology from Kahn. And from there, Wack developed the Shell Scenario Planning Process. And the kind of claim to fame for this process is that it predicted the 1973 oil crisis. So essentially, they had these different scenarios and one of them included something akin to the oil crisis.

And as a result of this, Shell was able to better react to that crisis when it struck. And so they kind of came out on top as a result of this. And so this really solidified the legacy of these Shell scenarios and they continue to use this process to this day. So they go through it every however many years. In the 1990s, Shell employee Adam Kahane used this process in discussions of ending apartheid in South Africa.

And he created an off branch of this methodology which he called transformative scenario planning. And it was designed to bring people together from very different backgrounds and perspectives and to create plausible and challenging scenarios to help with strategic planning. So in the face of this kind of end to apartheid, and so these scenarios were called the Mont Fleur Scenarios.

And after that, he went on to form Rios Partners and Rios Partners also facilitated the scenario process here in Southeast Alaska, so they do this process kind of globally. And what I really wanna emphasize here is the way that these scenarios are rooted in specific knowledge systems that come from the oil industry and from Nuclear Futures. And so even if these transformative scenarios are not about the future of the oil industry or about corporate futures, they still draw from knowledge systems and context that are highly antithetical to Indigenous lifeways, land claims, and values. And this is something that has been much critiqued, especially by media studies scholars. So I'm gonna read this quote by media studies scholar Kara Keeling, where she's discussing some of the implications of the Shell scenarios.

So she writes, a future in which Royal Dutch Shell would continue to exist as such forecloses upon a future in which those groups of living beings we currently can identify as Black people and/or Indigenous peoples have the resources to enjoy a sustainable and joyful existence on this planet. So essentially Shell relies on extraction from the lands and labor of Black and/or Indigenous peoples, and simultaneously these people are those put most at risk by Shell's operations. And the implications of these knowledge systems are especially important to note when we're specifically thinking about climate futures when one of the largest blocks to climate action has been large oil companies. So with this in mind, we're gonna pivot back to the possible futures for Southeast Alaska scenario planning process and think about how Tlingit futures did not necessarily fit within these scenarios. So throughout this process, I was asking myself, whose future are we imagining?

And in the process of writing the scenarios as a group, it was initially very difficult to define where Native people were fitting into these scenarios. And this was partially because there were a lot of people involved who were non-Indigenous, and a lot of them did not have knowledge of how tribal governments function, how Alaska Native corporations function. And so it was very easy for them to kind of forget this, move on from it, when thinking about these futures and how they would function and how everything would fit together. And Tlingit participants within this and other indigenous participants worked very hard to be included in all of the scenarios. But nevertheless, one scenario actually proposed a future wherein there would be no Tlingit people in the region by the end date of the scenarios, which was 2050.

And this was very quickly deemed not plausible and was not included in the final scenarios. And this was partially because of the long-term Tlingit presence in the region. And essentially, this was established partially through attention to Tlingit temporality. So this concept of ha shuka, past and future. Our presence in the past allows us to project our presence into the future.

So as a result of this, Tlingit temporality was represented at least in some form in the scenarios. However, our forms of futurity also exceeds the boundaries of this scenario planning process. And I ultimately argue that the deep relationships with place and with our ancestors and descendants precedes and will outlast the forms of futurity of the settler colonial state and of oil and corporate futurity.

And so on a similar note of futurity, my conclusion focused on the theme, the future is indigenous. And my usage of this was coming out of a Tlingit and Haida Youth Summit that took place several years ago, and this was the theme for the summit: The Future is Indigenous. And what I really like about it is the way that it emphasizes continued presence on our lands, and also the way that our way of life is intertwined with our homelands. And as they continue to change and adapt, so will we. And this is a continuation of what we as Tlingit people have always done.

Done. And I just want to end with a brief description of some of the future plans for the research you heard about today. So I am currently working on a book proposal which will include a lot of the things you heard about today, and then I will also be continuing this research in various forms, and I'm going to be thinking about this question of incommensurability. So essentially, incommensurability is when Things do not fit together. They don't talk to one another.

They are not compatible. And I'm very curious about the ways that incommensurability comes into play when we're thinking about different knowledge systems. So knowledge systems like Euro-American, Western science especially, and indigenous knowledge. And there's a lot of interest in bringing these things together, and that has been very fruitful and very helpful in community in a lot of cases. But is there a point at which these are no longer compatible?

What does that point look like? And how does climate change expose these moments? So those are some of the questions I'm asking that I'll be considering going forward. And with that, gunaltsiish.

No? Oh, there it goes. Okay. I think we have a couple minutes for question and answer. Anybody have questions for Dr. Allen?

No takers?

Okay, I'll ask a question. Oh, okay, we've got one.

Thank you for your presentation. There's so much information that you gave us right now that my head is spinning. When we talk about culture and we talk about community, we still haven't gotten over colonization.

I would like to see, when you talk about communities, kwans. When we start using the word Tlingit awnee, clans own the land. Clans are the ones that make the decision. But the most important part of all of this is And I've said it before with my good friend Dan Brown, that uncles will never raise nephews and aunties will never raise nieces because we have a point of surrogance in our culture. It's not because we can't, It's because what you've been talking about on the screen all this time is who has the money.

And that's what makes the world go around, who has the money. Who has the say is the person that has the money. I would like to see more interaction with clans and call it what it is. And called clan ownership intellectual property rights. I've also sat on the Repatriation Committee back in 1990, and I was the youngest when I sat there, and Uncle Matthew Fred and Harold Martin and my clan mother, Lena Farkas, quite a bit of them.

This is a really touchy subject. When we start talking about ownership of At.Uu., we never at that time, because I was the youngest, I said I'll quit and put an elder ahead of me, and they said no, we want you here because you're going to outlive us, but I want you to remember what was said today. What they said today is we never wanted a clearinghouse. We wanted the stuff to go back to the clans, to make sure it goes back to the clans. When we start talking about what goes back to the clans and we talk about our corporation and whatever, Sealaska, I'm not trying to down talk, you guys are doing a good job or else I wouldn't be here, but the whole point of the fact is is that clans don't own the land anymore.

Sealaska owns the land. Clans don't have any say on their land. Sealaska has the say.

What more can we do besides changing the colonization of our verbiage to make the younger generation stand strong enough to tell their story, to tell who they are.

Your introduction today was really nice, but the most important thing is we don't introduce ourselves. Somebody has to introduce you, but there's so much that people look at it as nitpicking, but it's called protocol. I've learned from Willis Peters, my grandpa, Hoon Yes, Kaagwantan from the Gauhit. I've learned from my great-grandfather, Dzánti K'ihéeni, from the Goochit, and they said Always hold your head up and be proud.

The most important thing is this is your land. So corporation, Juneau community, or all communities, there has to be some type of coalition between all of us if we are going to survive.

For the people that sit there, and I saw what you said about non-natives, we're having a problem with non-natives that are telling our stories. We have a problem that they're getting paid for it when natives of Tlingit, Haida, should tell their own stories. Because of their birth, their birthrights. I think a lot of these things that we're talking about as protocol and the sharing of knowledge and whatever is very important, but it seems to be a soundboard for everybody. You know, everybody says, okay, we did a good job, we're talking about it, boom, let's bring it up.

We bring it up and boom, we're gone.

Why? Because there's no money in there. Money pays for time. So any type of trickle-down of meetings like this where people can come and talk of what little knowledge we have. Like I said before, you take that tree over there, that spruce tree, I only know a needle of that spruce tree, of what's passed down, and I'm just imitating.

Just how much information, knowledge that our grandchildren's children will have to buy in the future.

I'm saying really buy. Because if you don't pass this down and we don't protect Tlingit Haani, just look at our corporations. Now they're telling us what to do. We're ANSCA. ANSCA should— is a specialty.

We shouldn't have to go through all of this permits and whatever. We should be able to stand. When we use the word sovereignty, sovereignty means you stand on your own. You make your own money. It's not given to you by the United States government.

We, the Tlingit people, and I'll tell you what, when I was growing up, there was hardly anybody on Sealaska that had a degree. But look where we are today. That's so amazing. But I want to thank you very much for your presentation and I really appreciate it, but you open too many doors. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for your comments. And I think what you were saying about the clan ownership and everything, I— one of the other next steps, which is something I think really needs to be rooted in community and not so much for, you know, the larger academic discourse is what you were saying about that clan knowledge and how can we continue to bring that to the younger generations and ensure that, you know, they understand those protocols and that, you know, we can carry that forward. So that's something else I've been thinking about is how this work applies in community directly in those clan relationships. So gunalchéesh for that.

Quick question.

You mentioned tourism, climate change, climate change, and our— the smaller communities' ability to adapt to the changes that are happening. What is your solution? Because what I'm seeing is less and less. How do we control that? I know the world spins around money, but when it comes right down to our adapting to survive in today's climate changes, what do you think needs to happen?

Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, I think in terms of the cruise industry specifically, I think one of the problems that we've seen here in Southeast Alaska is that, like you said, because of money, because they have so much power, the industry has really been able to come in and divide communities and pit us against each other in a lot of cases. And so, you know, there is this kind of unequal distribution or there's no real, like, bargaining power from the communities. And so in that regard, I think that, you know, something that would be really helpful would be a collective approach, you know, from different communities being able to come together and kind of set those boundaries, set the standard for what that interaction should look like. And then in a broader sense, I think honestly just continuing to have these conversations kind of in a similar vein, like, what do people want regionally, and then also scaling down to that individual community in terms of, you know, their climate change response.

So we thinking about adaptation, are we thinking about mitigation, what do those look like in different communities, and really trying to— I think this is already happening, but really trying to continue to have those conversations between communities and on a regional level so that we can have an approach that is bringing people together instead of kind of siloing us into our individual communities.

Dr. Allen, thank you very much for your presentation, but also thank you for helping us continue this journey to sort of indigenize our young people's thinking. Yes, the impacts of the Western culture colonization on our cultures, on our thinking, on our worldview is forever part of us. But we know that more recent times we are on this path to sort of reclaim, you know, our place and the credibility, the integrity of everything that indigenous Tlingit people have when we think about our Art as, you know, as an example. We're seeing this revitalization of art that was nearly lost. And the science and the knowledge that's required behind it.

And as we see it in public places, what our communities are learning is that just because the Tlingit people, the Native people are having art in public places, are having educational materials in our classrooms, we are not taking away anything from anyone. In fact, we are adding to it. We're adding to that authenticity, to that local, regional knowledge and authenticity of where we live and where we have lived for 10,000 years. It is an ongoing learning process. So I just want to share a recent revelation with the Council of Traditional Scholars.

And we were talking about, you know, it is beautiful how we're seeing these art classes now being taught online, being taught in our communities outside of Southeast Alaska and Washington and Oregon. And a number of the scholars who are also artists Juneau, they had growing concerns with the way— and while it's still a beautiful thing, what they were concerned about was that our artists were not getting that very important connection to indigenous knowledge, to traditional science in the part that takes place in harvesting. If you're harvesting firs, spruce root, cedar bark, There is so much knowledge that's required to ensure that, you know, we're not taking too much, that it's going to grow back. So all of these things are really important. And again, it shows that we can have traditional knowledge, indigenous science that runs parallel with Western science, and they can complement each other.

But we want to show our young kids that, you know, we need to, as you talked about consistently, remember what our ancestors brought for us. So, gunalchéesh. Yeah, absolutely. And I think something that's so important within that is that it's such a holistic way of looking at things. You know, so, like you said, it's like you can learn how to weave, for example, but if you don't know how to harvest cedar, that's a whole really important component that you're not getting.

And so I think What's really interesting about Indigenous knowledge systems as opposed to these Western systems is the way that Indigenous knowledge is so focused on that holistic approach, where that whole component needs to come into it, and it's about all those relationships that are built across that entire process. And so, yeah, koonowtchish for bringing that up. I think that's really important to bring forward.

All right. With that, I think we're at the top of the hour and may close it out. So I just want to close by saying huge konnichiwa to you and Dzánti K'ihéeni for coming out and sharing your amazing work with SHI and the community.