From Lone Wolves to Relational Reindeer: Revealing Anthropological Myths and Methods in the Arctic

Abstract

This chapter examines how a new methodological approach, peer observation of research, was used as part of a comparative, ethnographic study of social resilience in Alaska and Siberia. The approach evolved through the collaboration of two indigenous researchers working in two different regions of the Arctic. Breaking from what has become a standard auto-ethnographic or self-reflexive enterprise in anthropology, our study aimed to document the collaborative ethnographic interaction from multiple perspectives and positions. We present two fieldwork episodes demonstrating the process and potential utility of a peer observation method for social researchers working in collaboration with indigenous communities and people in the Arctic. Peer observation of research reveals: (1) the ways in which our methods and models of collaborative research are relational and negotiated within an indigenous community and cultural context and (2) the degree to which our own indigenous kinship and association influences our ethnographic outcomes in a fieldwork setting leading to productive points of orientation and disorientation.