'Whale Snow': Five Questions with Author Chie Sakakibara

November 12, 2020

Communications Staff

Chie Sakakibara portrait.
Chie Sakakibara is the author a new book, 'Whale Snow,' about the Iñupiat community in Arctic Alaska.
Photo credit: Jennifer Manna

In Whale Snow: Iñupiat, Climate Change, and Multispecies Resilience in Arctic Alaska, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Chie Sakakibara uses multispecies ethnography to explore how the relatedness of the Iñupiat of Arctic Alaska and the bowhead whale forms and transforms “the human” through their encounters.

Sakakibara shows how people of Arctic Alaska live in the world that intersects with other beings, how these connections came into being, and, most importantly, how such intimate and intense relations help humans survive the challenges of climate change.

The University of Arizona Press recently spoke with Sakakibara in a Q&A.

Read the full interview

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