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The Speakers Bureau is a directory of arctic researchers and experts that are available to visit organizations, communities or schools to give presentations. The directory contains names, addresses, science specialties, and presentation experience.
We encourage organizations and communities applying to the Arctic Visiting Speakers Series to use the Speakers Bureau to select a visiting speaker. If a particular subject or speaker is not listed, please contact Judy Fahnestock at avs [at] arcus [dot] org, for suggested speakers.
Chie Sakakibara
About:
Chie Sakakibara is a cultural geographer interested in global indigenous studies and human-animal interactions. Her current research focuses on global warming and its influence on traditional human relationships with the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) in the Alaskan Arctic. During her fieldwork among the Iñupiaq people in Barrow and Point Hope, Alaska (2004-7), she was adopted by several whaling families and experienced their subsistence activities including whaling. Sakakibara has extensive invited lecture experience.
Along with her climate change project in the Arctic, she has begun exploring in-depth case studies of human interaction with whales in the Azores because of the region's historical link to arctic Alaska. In the Azores, the whales have been vital to human survival since the arrival of Portuguese settlers in the fifteenth century. Despite the physical distance between northern Alaska and the Azores, key issues elucidate interrelationships between the two regions. As the effects of climate change take hold among Alaskan and Azorean communities, the role and place of whales in sustaining ethnic identities becomes greater, and among the Iñupiaq provides the cornerstone of cultural resilience that people embrace to imagine a hopeful future.
"I have been conducting fieldwork on climate change and indigenous cultural responses in northern Alaska since 2004. As a form of reciprocity, I would like to travel and share my knowledge, findings and experience in communities by becoming part of the Arctic Visiting Speakers program. I would be delighted to address a variety of audiences including K-12 students, graduate and undergraduate students, and the public." Sakakibara is available most of the year , with the exceptions of June and July.
A few representative lectures include:
- Into The Whaling Cycle: Global Warming and Iñupiaq Cultural Responses in Arctic Alaska
- Repatriation as Re-animation: Bringing Iñupiat Music Home to Alaska
- Kiavallakkikput Aġviq: Cultural Responses to Climate Change among the Iñupiaq People of Arctic Alaska
- Global Warming and the Iñupiaq Cultural Responses
Sakakibara received her PhD in Geography from the University of Oklahoma (OU), her BA in Native American Studies, and her MA in Art History at OU. In addition to her research, she collaborates with Columbia's Center for Ethnomusicology on their Iñupiaq music heritage repatriation project, led by Dr. Aaron A. Fox. Sakakibara has also served on the faculty in the Native American Studies Program at OU.
