| Cancer is the leading cause of death among Alaska Native women and the third leading cause of death among Alaska Native men. Speculation abounds as to why people living in some of the most remote regions of the United States are crippled with cancer, and, without a doubt, these theories are emotionally saturated, politically problematic, and highly contested in Alaska today. The 1992 “discovery” of an abandoned federal radioactive waste dump (known as Project Chariot) in northwest Alaska ignited debates about whether radioactive waste was responsible for cancer. This dissertation explores a number of different dimensions of the cancer problem in Arctic Alaska, both from a scientific and social scientific vantage point. First and foremost, however, this is a medical anthropological study of how Inupiat conceptualized the etiology and mode of transmission of cancer in the mid-1990's. Second, this dissertation investigates how biomedical assessments influenced Inupiat conceptions of their health, their bodies, and their land. I spent two-and-a-half years conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the town of Kotzebue, in isolated hunting and fishing camps, as well as in the villages of Shungnak, Evik, Point Hope, and Ambler. I demonstrate that Inupiat made sense of cancer in relation to the legacy of atnignaun (infectious diseases) that came to them throughout the early to mid-twentieth century. Cancer was interpreted as yet another germ-induced condition, much like tuberculosis, for which they had no inherent immunity. Inupiat strategies to protect themselves from “catching” cancer from the caribou, seals, and fish were predicated upon an interpretation of cancer as a parasitic or germ-like entity that “eats” the body. With regards to the influence of biomedicine, I also concluded that Inupiat theories and public health dogma merged on the idea that cancer etiology revolves around “poor” eating habits and food choices. In light of the ongoing environmental problems in Arctic Alaska, learning how to be a healthy citizen from the Alaska Department of Health may have a serious downside for identifying and challenging the broader structural forces contributing to cancer causation today. |
