Kathleen Graves is not your typical UA International Polar Year postdoc. She ound her way to science after 20 years in behavioral health services in the Anchorage area, and she is one of the few postdoctoral researchers born and raised in Alaska. Both aspects give her invaluable tools to carry out her research project, an international collaboration to analyze and understand the environmental, social and cultural factors that contribute positively to the resiliency and adaptation of arctic rural villages in this time of rapid global change.
Originally from Ninilchik, a fishing community on the Kenai Peninsula, Graves’ ancestry is a mix of Russian, Alutiiq, Athabascan and Caucasian. This comes in handy when meeting with the elders of a village, she notes. “There’s a cultural way of introducing yourself, to connect yourself to your land, your people, your ancestors. I joke that when meeting Native people, if we talk long enough, we’ll eventually figure out how we’re related.”
This cultural fluency helps Graves overcome the challenge outsiders often face when working in rural villages. Success depends on patience and cultural understanding to build partnerships and engage community members, some of whom become collaborators with the academic team. Her previous work as a therapist aids in gathering oral histories, gaining trust and employing good listening skills.
In her discussions with Alaska Native elders, it became clear to Graves that “Alaska Native people are tired of researchers coming to their communities and talking about what’s wrong and measuring all the problems. They would rather we focus upon the strengths of the people, community and culture. This is vital for the balance and harmony of our work.”
One village of interest is Kake, in Southeast Alaska, which had one of the highest rates of suicide and alcoholism but which in recent years has begun to turn it around. “They have gone back to some cultural ways that were helpful to them in the past,” Graves notes. “They’re engaging their entire community and their elders in the healing process, and all this has made a difference in the levels of suicide, violence and alcoholism.”
By examining the steps the community took, Graves hopes her project will create a model for other similarly struggling communities, giving them hope and a sense of pride. “The goals of the research will be to help the community, not only the researcher, to understand things. That’s a way that IPY can make a difference in people’s lives.”
“When I went into my Ph.D. program, I had no intention of doing research and being a scientist,” Graves says. “I thought, this is just going to put me in a better position, having this advanced degree, to work with my clients doing individual therapy. So it was the big ‘Ah-Ha!’ when I started doing research and fell in love with it.”
What she likes about it best are the same things that drew her into mental health work. “For me, it’s about the people and their stories, and as a therapist, I can take the information that I have about working with mostly Alaska Native people in my career and apply it to my scientific work. It’s a nice match.” Back to Postdocs |
