Professor Peter Schweitzer of the University of Alaska Fairbanks is project leader of the international collaborative research project “Moved by the State: Perspectives on Relocation and Resettlement in the Circumpolar North (MOVE)” and PI of the U.S. portion of the project. MOVE examines local and regional contexts and impacts of state-induced relocations and resettlements of indigenous and non-indigenous Arctic communities in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Schweitzer and his team are conducting research in Alaskan and Russian Far Eastern communities and work in collaboration with researchers in Canada, Russia, Greenland and Finland.

Shishmaref and other costal communities in northwestern Alaska are one focus of study because they are losing residential areas due to erosion from severe storm events. In a way, climate change will trigger relocations during the 21^st century. During the 20^th century, on the other hand, paternalistic state-intervention typically led to the relocation of small indigenous communities and our research in Chukotka (Russian Federation) focuses on that aspect. The main tasks consist in documenting these relocation events and in understanding the factors that led to negative (and rarely positive) impacts of displacements. Thus, MOVE reaches beyond a general history of events and intends to learn lessons for future relocations.

MOVE is a project of the European Science Foundation (ESF EUROCORES Programme BOREAS); MOVE is an International Polar Year 2007-09 project (#436) and the U.S. part of the overall research activity is funded by the National Science Foundation (Award No. ARC-0713896).

Learn more about MOVE at http://www.alaska.edu/move/

(Shishmaref/Golovin): Villages such as Golovin and Shishmaref, situated along the coast of the Bering Strait, are increasingly vulnerable to flooding and erosion. 

Photos by Elizabeth Marino.

(Nuniamo): A contemporary hunting camp near the village of Nuniamo, which was closed in the early 1970’s.   

Photo by Tobias Holzlehner.