In the Fourth World

The tiny and remote Inupiaq village of Kivalina, Alaska is crowded into the southern tip of an extremely narrow barrier reef island above the Arctic Circle. When you stand on the village’s only road – a gravel path that leads from the airstrip to the southern tip of the island – you can see the shores of Kivalina lagoon to the east and the Chukchi Sea to the west just by turning your head. The eroding edges of this narrow spit of land, the poverty, overcrowding and decay in the village, sit in profound contrast with the vast and spectacular landscape beyond.

Kivalina – where indigenous people live below the poverty line, without running water or toilets, adequate health care, quality education or access to employment – is “in the Fourth World.” The phrase “The Fourth World” alludes to a history of shared experiences among the indigenous communities of the world struggling for self-determination. The phrase was coined in 1974 by Shuswap Chief George Manuel in “The Fourth World: an Indian Reality”.

Unlike the First, Second and Third worlds identified in cold war discourse, Manuel’s “Fourth World” nations of indigenous peoples living within or across state boundaries – are not identified by their citizenship in a specific nation-state and their lives are not motivated by imperialism or capitalism. “The Fourth World” is also commonly used to refer to sub-populations existing in a First World country, but with the living standards of a Third World country – precarious lives.

In my visits to Kivalina I have documented village life and subsistence activities and recorded over 40 interviews in which members of the native tribe describe their political and social history, the nature of Inupiaq traditional knowledge, the subsistence lifestyle, the struggle to gain fair representation in a cash economy, and the effects of climate change they have personally observed and documented.

These interviews will be part of an interactive online documentary, titled “In the Fourth World”, which will serve as a portal to a participatory community platform and open data archive containing approximately 100 years of textual, audio, video and photographic documentation – records that were, until recently, forgotten and buried in boxes in tribal and municipal government offices that expose the long history of colonial oppression and exploitation they continue to endure.

This work-in-progress case study will engage questions on the ethical challenges of co-creation, documentary epistemology and affective exposure). This work-in-progress case study will engage questions on the ethical challenges of co-creation, documentary epistemology and affective exposure in this context.