NORSEC Activities: Publication Outlet for Contemporary Political-Economic Dynamics in Northern Indigenous Communities

Beginning in late-1999 and early-2000, the University of Nebraska Press will begin publishing a new series directed and edited by CUNY Anthropology professors Gerald Sider (CSI/GSUC) and Kirk Dombrowski (John Jay). This series -- called "Fourth World Rising: Contemporary Native Struggles in the Americas and Beyond" -- has an overall focus on Native Studies throughout the Americas, but already contain a significant number of planned monographs centered on Northern communities.

In particular, the rapid, recent push for the development of arctic and near-arctic natural resources has placed northern studies at the forefront of research on social transformation in Native communities. Among the first several monographs to be included in the series are works on: class formation and religious conversion in Alaska (Dr. Kirk Dombrowski, John Jay CUNY); fishing and fisheries disputes in the North Pacific (Dr. Charles Menzies, UBC -- Dr. Menzies is also a CUNY Anthropology Ph.D.); the creation of Nunavut, a sovereign First Nation in Northern Canada (Dr. Norman Chance, U. Connecticut, and Thomas Plunkett -- Tom Plunkett is currently a student in the GSUC Anthropology program); and, finally, a monograph on the changing political status of Canada's arctic and near-arctic Native communities under the new Canadian Constitution (Dr. Peter Kulchyski, Trent).

The final contract for the book series was signed and approved in May 1999. In this contract, and in all of our communications with Nebraska, the press has expressed a sincere desire to produce relatively inexpensive paperback works aimed at undergraduate course use. As such, the series represents an opportunity for cultural anthropologist working in northern Native communities to produce timely, engaged research for broad dissemination. The editors individual experience with northern communities should attract authors specializing in this area, and both editors would sincerely like to list a "GSUC Northern Studies and Education Center" among their institutional affiliations for the series. This will help attract students interested in Northern Studies to the GSUC, and authors/researchers working in northern communities and seeking a high quality publication outlet that is already conversant in northern issues. For these same reasons, the series will help publicize CUNY's strength in and commitment to timely research on social transformation in northern areas.