News Release

Warming with a whale-centric worldview

Grant and Award Announcement

University of Oklahoma

NORMAN—Chie Sakakibara, lecturer and University of Oklahoma doctoral graduate, won the 2007 Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the Graduate College. In her dissertation, titled “Cetaceousness and Global Warming Among the Iñupiat of Arctic Alaska,” Sakakibara examined specific ways in which global warming in the Arctic influences Iñupiat society.

Under the advisement of Robert Rundstrom, OU geography professor, Sakakibara’s dissertation required two years of work and is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Barrow and Point Hope, Alaska. In order to illustrate how deeply global warming penetrates into the cultural core of Iñupiat society, Sakakibara studied different aspects of the relationships between Iñupiat people and bowhead whales. Sakakibara found that as global warming creates a more unpredictable environment, Iñupiat people retain and strengthen their identity through their associations with whales. These associations, including traditional and contemporary whale-related events and performances, represent the emotional intensity felt in Iñupiat society because of the effects of global warming.

Sakakibara will be presented with an award at a ceremony on April 30 in the Sandy Bell Gallery of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.

“Concluding my international student life at OU, I am extremely happy to receive this award and am also eternally grateful for the continuous support provided by OU Geography and Native American Studies faculty, other funding agencies, and emotional support from my family and friends all over the world,” said Sakakibara.

After receiving a doctorate in geography from OU in 2007, Sakakibara became a full-time lecturer in Native American Studies. She recently accepted an offer from the Earth Institute at Columbia University for a two-year post-doctoral fellowship beginning in September 2008.

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On the Web:

University of Oklahoma
www.ou.edu
College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences
www.ags.ou.edu
Department of Geography http://geography.ou.edu


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