Emerging Indigenous Economic Institutions and Wealth and Inequality in the Arctic (EIWA)

In the last five decades Arctic Indigenous communities underwent considerable and often innovative transformations in respect to the economic institutions that are controlled by the Indigenous Peoples. Alongside the recognition of the Indigenous rights and growing self-determination in many parts of the Arctic, one of the key developments has been the emergence of the new Indigenous economic institutions directly or indirectly involved in wealth generation and distribution, such as Native and village corporations in Alaska, Indigenous development and regional corporations in Canada and obschinas in Russia.

Past studies identified the nature and functioning of the economic institutions as an important factor of positive resource development outcomes at the community level. Still, there is relatively little known about how economic institutions can be developed to both reflect Indigenous values and successfully interact with resource extractive or other exogenous economic activities. As in other Indigenous communities around the world, new institutional frameworks in the Arctic stemmed from national and regional legislation, comprehensive land claim agreements and other legal and customary practices, often combining traditional and business economic principles. In some instances, these institutions partially replaced, transformed or supplemented colonial economic structures, while in others they failed to succeed or exacerbated colonial dependency. Yet, there is a lack of understanding of what emerging Indigenous economic institutions perform well in respect to community wealth, and why. The varying views that include both praise (as pathways for promoting economic development and decolonization, wealth sovereignty, self-determination, service delivery, etc.) and criticism (as forms of neocolonialism, cooptation, assimilation and outsider dominance) of these institutions are mostly case - or region - specific and are rarely based on assimilating extensive data from across different Arctic regions. Given the considerable history of the Indigenous institutional innovation in the Arctic, it is now possible and important to examine how they impacted, intentionally or not, the wealth and inequality in Arctic communities. Capitalizing on decades-long experiences from Arctic Indigenous communities, this project will also shed a new light on the processes, success stories and lessons learned in developing such institutions, and will improve our understanding of why certain institutional arrangements produce similar or different outcomes across time and space. These findings will constitute major public policy lessons that are increasingly relevant as economic activity in the Arctic Indigenous homelands is poised to grow. The results will also be instrumental for economic development and policy debates in Indigenous communities beyond the Arctic.

This project aims to answer the following questions:

• What ‘new’ Indigenous economic institutions have been created in the last 50 years and what are their characteristics?
• What have been the intended and observed impacts of these institutions on wealth generation, distribution, management, sovereignty and inequality in Arctic Indigenous communities?
• How do these institutional arrangements and impacts vary by the region and community and what lessons can be learned from their operation?

To do so, we will complete a systematic desktop study of public documents describing Indigenous-controlled economic institutional arrangements across the Arctic Indigenous homelands and analyze these institutions’ declared intent and actions in respect to wealth and inequality. We will also conduct a meta-analysis and synthesis of existing literature on the subject.

Relying on the results of this desktop study, we will select and focus on three case studies to provide an in-depth examination of institutional arrangements and their impacts on community wealth and inequality in different Arctic contexts: a for-profit corporation in Alaska, a non-profit community corporation in Canada and an obshchina in Russia. Document and data analysis will be performed, and interviews will be conducted with key information gatekeepers either in person or virtually. We will implement a snowball model to recruit the interviewees and will ensure that key stake-, rights- and knowledge holder groups are included.

Alaska
Canada
Greenland and Faroe Islands
Iceland
Norway, Sweden, and Finland
Russia

Objectives

A. Describe
B. Explain
C. Imagine

Axes

1. Current state of wealth distribution
2. Social transitions and trends in the distribution of wealth
3. Towards a more equitable distribution

Work Packages

1.1. The structures of distribution among agents
1.2. Economic inequalities of gender, ethnicity, and age
2.1. Development trajectories
2.2. The dynamics of economic inequalities
3.1. Institutional changes
3.2. Indigenous perspectives on development
3.3. Indigenous and citizens’ practices in the struggle to overcome inequalities
3.4. Social innovation, reconciliation and adaptation