Scaggs Shane A, Gerkey Drew, McLaughlin Katherine R
Department of Anthropology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Department of Anthropology, School of Language, Culture and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
Am J Hum Biol. 2021 Jul;33(4):e23573. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.23573. Epub 2021 Feb 8.
Although anthropogenic climate change poses existential challenges for Indigenous communities in the Arctic, these challenges are not entirely unprecedented. Over many generations, Arctic peoples have developed a wide range of behavioral strategies to navigate environmental change and uncertainty, and these strategies provide a foundation for contemporary adaptation.
In this article, we focus on mixed cash-subsistence economies and the social networks that underlie them in Alaska. The patterns of food production, labor exchange, and food sharing in subsistence-oriented communities throughout Alaska are driven by the productivity of keystone households who regularly harvest and share resources within and between communities.
MATERIALS & METHODS: Building on previous research suggesting the critical importance of these networks to community resilience, we use network analysis to investigate whether patterns in resource transfers between households are associated with subsistence harvest diversity-the diversity of species harvested by a household unit. We use exponential random graph models to describe the structure of a sharing network from Aniak, Alaska, and model the links between harvest productivity, harvest diversity, and household position in this network.
Our results indicate that both productivity and diversity are positively associated with network connections, and that productivity alone provides an incomplete model of network structure.
We suggest that subsistence harvest diversity may play a unique role in supporting adaptive capacity and resilience by maintaining the productivity of keystone households despite changing environments and sustaining social network structures that circulate resources throughout the community. Harvest diversity may also serve as a broad indicator of Indigenous ecological knowledge and a tangible representation of cultural practices, values, and worldviews that underlie subsistence in Alaska.
Greater attention to harvest diversity is important for understanding how subsistence networks adapt to environmental change and uncertainty linked to social and ecological dynamics of anthropogenic climate change.
尽管人为气候变化给北极地区的原住民社区带来了生存挑战，但这些挑战并非完全前所未有的。在许多代人的时间里，北极地区的人们已经制定了各种各样的行为策略来应对环境变化和不确定性，这些策略为当代的适应提供了基础。
在本文中，我们关注阿拉斯加的混合现金-自给自足经济及其背后的社会网络。阿拉斯加各地以自给自足为导向的社区中的食物生产、劳动力交换和食物分享模式，是由关键家庭的生产力驱动的，这些家庭定期在社区内部和社区之间收获和分享资源。
基于先前的研究表明这些网络对社区恢复力至关重要，我们使用网络分析来调查家庭之间资源转移的模式是否与自给自足收获多样性相关——家庭单位收获的物种多样性。我们使用指数随机图模型来描述阿拉斯加阿尼亚克的一个分享网络的结构，并对收获生产力、收获多样性和该网络中家庭位置之间的联系进行建模。
我们的结果表明，生产力和多样性都与网络连接呈正相关，而且仅生产力并不能完整地描述网络结构。
我们认为，自给自足收获多样性可能在支持适应能力和恢复力方面发挥独特作用，即尽管环境变化，但通过维持关键家庭的生产力以及维持在整个社区中循环资源的社会网络结构来实现。收获多样性还可能作为原住民生态知识的广泛指标，以及阿拉斯加自给自足背后的文化实践、价值观和世界观的具体体现。
更加关注收获多样性对于理解自给自足网络如何适应与人为气候变化的社会和生态动态相关的环境变化和不确定性非常重要。
