SELECTED THESES ON THE CIRCUMPOLAR ARCTIC

Aiding the survival of native peoples led to this comparison of American and Soviet/Russian government policies towards such peoples, mostly Eskimo and Chukchi, living on both sides of the Bering Strait (the northwest Alaska coast and the Chukchi Peninsula). This comparison reveals an underlying common European approach to native peoples based on the assumed superiority of European social, economic, spiritual and knowledge systems to those of the native peoples. This deeply held assumption operates at conscious and unconscious levels to influence makers of policy towards native peoples and academics, mostly white male Europeans, who have produced nearly all the writing in both countries concerning northern native peoples.
The practical effects of this assumption offer a consistent explanation for the near total differences between native and European-based societies across the entire range of human concerns. The roots of the European approach lie in many centuries of exploitative economic formations, the justification of which requires assertions of superiority over those or that being exploited. These attitudes carried over into the would-be socialist exploitation-free Soviet Union as sharply revealed in the policies of the Soviet government and Communist Party towards the Small Peoples of the North.
Native societies based on a more communal approach to relations between people and with nature have shown a persistent determination to survive attacks on all aspects of their ways of life. Recent times have seen a resurgence of native organization beginning with land rights and now extending to spiritual rights.
Deeply held spiritual beliefs and practices on both sides today find expression in major practical questions ranging from control of education to the understanding of nature regarding fish and game regulations. This has brought the spiritual question to the fore, and the resulting dialogues within and between native and European-based the fore, and the resulting dialogues within and between native and European-based societies have not been easy. Europeans have had a difficult time confronting their own attitudes because those attitudes help maintain a superior position. Exploring and clarifying the native-European interaction may lead to better understanding and more positive policies permitting the continued group existence of native peoples.'