So We Can Get Luck: Kigiqtaamiut Relational Management of Marine Resources

Kigiqtaamiut Iñupiaq hunters from Shishmaref, Alaska employ highly personal, individualistic, and adaptive management strategies in order to maintain consistent bearded seal (ugzruk) harvest levels during annually occurring spring subsistence hunts. Personal experiences with animals and the bio-physical world are continuously informed through ongoing engagements with, and in consideration of other hunters’ stories and experiences, local history, older beliefs and empirical observations of animal behaviors and other natural phenomena. Hunters’ ways of knowing do not limit the influential role of animals, and the physical environment in determining the outcome of hunts in response to human actions and intentions. Therefore in order to increase their possibilities for success some Kigiqtaamiut hunters seek to manifest “luck” though self-regulation in hunting practices, discourses and other aspects of hunting and daily life. Shared and intersubjective understandings form a central dimension of local management of bearded seal resources embodied in hunters’ experiences and local hunting practices.