ALASKA

Alan Miller

Anchorage, AK

I am not really prepared to formulate a project to use with my students at this time. I can, however, issue a progress report which may carry a thread of continuity toward future application.

I promised myself to go slow this summer, read all the material I could, listen carefully, and try to see where my mindset fit into the ethical roots of technology. I also promised to give myself time to synthesize what I had absorbed, hoping that this might lead to an objectivity that I lack. I had no plan other than a conquest of my own subjective evaluation of the effects of technology. At this point, I've failed in my objectives. I do feel ,though, that I have found a tool that I can eventually use in evaluating the functional consequences of the selective technological innovations which have been adapted for use by Alaskan native villagers.

This tool is the paradigmatic process which Wallace uses in the Rockdale study. This model, hopefully, will serve in helping me understand the dynamics of cultural change in an objective manner as well as allow me to transfer this understanding to the unique Alaskan situation. The last two components of the model, functional consequences and rationalization are of greatest potential in my own application of this process. Here I see the possibility of answering some questions and formulating some solutions to the most outstanding problem which emerged from the application of selected innovations.

The emergence of leisure time and its abuse seems to be the greatest social and cultural consequence of the acceptance of technological innovations by Alaskan native villagers. Dealing with leisure time in a productive manner would ultimately be the goal I have in mind. In order to reach that goal, I have a very general outline of steps I plan to take. These steps are not sequential.

1. Reading:
   1. Garfinkel, Harold. Studies in Ethnomethodology
   2. Kroeber, A. L. Cultural and Natural Areas of North America
   3. Kroeber, A. L. Configurations of Cultural Growth
   4. Kuhn, Thomas. Structure of Scientific Revolutions
   5. Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation
   6. Smelser, Karl. Social Change in the Industrial Revolution
2. Eskimo values which are different, which lead to conflict in functional consequences. These need definition and clarification.
   1. Concept of time.
   2. Relationship with nature.
   3. Group cohesion and the community.
   4. Education and survival orientation.
   5. The Elder as role model.
   6. The dollar economy.
3. Physical and environmental features which are different and which lead to conflict in functional consequences. These need definition and clarification.
   1. Isolation.
   2. Lack of stimulation.
   3. Small, autonomous units.
4. Technological innovations which have led to functional consequences.
   1. Rifle.
   2. Snow machine (snow go!).
   3. Television.
   4. The village store.

Although very loosely organized, this gives me a starting point, a framework upon which to hang other factors which I'm sure will emerge from more intense probing. Ultimately, I intend to develop a counseling technique which would involve problem solving in a subtle, non-clinical setting, namely, the classroom. Further expansion of my hopes, in this paper, would be mere conjecture.