Marie Lowe
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D., Applied Anthropology, Columbia University, 2006.
MA, Anthropology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2000.
BS, Economics, Lehigh University, 1991.
Phone: (907) 786-6534
Fax: (907) 786-7739
E-Mail: marie.lowe@uaa.alaska.edu
Map to my office
I first came to Alaska in 1990 looking for adventure and freedom and found both. Since that time, I have also been completely taken with Alaska’s unique people, history, economy, and culture. I earned a doctorate in Applied Anthropology from Columbia University in 2006 with a thesis entitled, “The Impact of Industrialized Fishing on Localized Social and Environmental Change in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.”
In 2006, I came on board with ISER to study community impacts of restructuring in fisheries which at the time entailed an examination of the federal crab rationalization program and its real and potential effects on Aleutian and Alaska Peninsula communities. I am currently conducting sociocultural and policy research in the context of globalization, economic development, resource management, migration, youth culture, education, and workforce development. I taught courses in human geography and introductory anthropology before joining ISER and at UAA, I have taught a course in cultural anthropology and an upper division course called, “Culture and Globalization.”
Enclosing the Fisheries: People, Places and Power
Dr. Lowe’s new co-edited volume published by the American Fisheries Society examines effects of restricted access management in fisheries on people and their communities.
Economic logic that guides the limitation and privatization of access rights seeks to address overcapitalization and inefficiencies that result from open access fisheries. This type of fisheries management, often called rationalization, has gained international common sense appeal. Yet the contested social impacts of restricted access, market-based resource management programs are increasingly documented in academic literature and continue to be a focus of social resistance and mobilization among those who have been displaced, or rationalized out of fishing in this process. The outcomes of ownership consolidation, loss of jobs and income, decreased labor mobility, prohibitive entry costs, loss of fishing rights from small communities and other distributional inequities can be understood broadly as the sociocultural effects of fisheries access restrictions this volume addresses.
The book’s chapters draw on ethnographic research in coastal communities in Alaska, British Columbia, Iceland, and New Zealand. This diverse collection of papers demonstrates the wide reach of privatization discourses and policies as experienced by people and communities dependent on fishing for livelihood and identity.
Current Research and Activities
Alaska Coastal Community Youth and the Future. I am examining the perceptions and perspectives of youth in Alaska's coastal fishing communities on their lives today, their goals or aspirations about the future. I am also looking at community in- and out-migration from their perspective under the context of changing economic conditions in coastal communities. Funding Agencies: Alaska Sea Grant and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
UAA Transitions This public service project links the University of Alaska Anchorage with the Anchorage School District in a collaborative pilot program. A semester long series of activities and events expanding the Anchorage School District’s SEL program, “PACE” (Planning Academic and Career Excellence) program helping to familiarize secondary students with college while encouraging leadership and peer mentorship skills in University of Alaska students. Click here for the program website and blog: http://uaatransitions.wordpress.com/
Migration in the Anchorage School District In September of 2008, Anchorage Superintendent of Schools, Carol Comeau, and the Municipality of Anchorage’s mayor, Mark Begich, sent a letter to Governor Sarah Palin requesting attention to the matter of a perceived population influx into Anchorage from Alaska’s rural communities, particularly noticeable in increased enrollment in the school district. This enrollment coincided with the largest ever permanent dividend fund payout, combined with a one-time energy rebate issued by the governor to offset rising energy costs totaling $3,269 per resident. With the cooperation of the Anchorage School District, ISER sent out a mail survey with a telephone follow-up to 791 families of new students in the Anchorage School district to find out if and why people are moving to Anchorage, and what the City of Anchorage and Anchorage School District can do to help them.
Cultural Models of Copper River Salmon Ecology In this project, an interdisciplinary research team of anthropologists, biologists, and Alaska Native partners, is assessing the existence and utility of local and traditional knowledge (LTK) and how it might differ from or resemble scientific knowledge of salmon in a particular ecosystem. LTK is an important source of ecological information; however difficulties remain translating LTK into forms applicable to fishery management. Recent studies conducted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game demonstrated that Ahtna and fishery managers have different perspectives on the long-term sustainability of the Copper River salmon fishery, which we believe are based on cultural differences and different spatial and temporal orientations. Using consensus analysis methodology we are addressing these differences in order to understand where the knowledge and opinions of LTK holders and fishery scientists/managers converge and diverge on the subject of salmon ecology. This study includes Ahtna, commercial fishers, and fishery scientists/managers. Funding Agency: North Pacific Research Board.
Arctic Observing Network Social Indicators Project A circumpolar arctic research team under Jack Kruse of ISER is working to understand how the human arctic is changing and to identify drivers of change. To do this, we are first identifying social and economic indicators of change that drive or feed back to arctic physical and biological system changes. We are collecting data on these indicators on a pan-arctic scale and are currently working with colleagues in Russia, Canada, and Scandinavia. The data we are collecting include socioeconomic changes at an intra regional (or county level) in the context of development and industrial activities in fisheries, subsistence, mining, and tourism. Funding Agency: National Science Foundation.