Co-Production of Knowledge and the delicate dance of physical and cultural distance to overcome.

Abstract:

Sea level rise, associated coastal erosion, river flooding, and permafrost thaw are contemporary threats to the infrastructure and sustainability of villages and tribes throughout Alaska and many parts of the Arctic. State and Federal agencies already work with villages to develop plans that involve the collection of data to determine rates and risks to ways of life. The NSF Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) program (among 10 Big Ideas) aims to increase the co-production of knowledge to accelerate the development of sustainable planning trajectories for villages. Yet bringing academic science to address contemporary and future challenges must involve partnering village educational and vocational needs for sustainability along with process, engineering, and climate change studies to fill data gaps leading to social and engineering solutions. COVID travel restrictions have made building collaboration more challenging for NNA, but we scientists must also embrace the exposure of racism and colonialism this past year and use it as an opportunity for science and indigenous communities to create open dialog leading, hopefully to genuine solution-based science.