To Die in the Silence of History: Yu'pik Peoples and the Tuberculosis Epidemics in 20th Century Alaska

FAIN: FEL-268007-20

Linda B. Green
Arizona Board of Regents (Tucson, AZ 85721-0073)

Research and writing leading to a book on the unintended social and cultural consequences of a successful public health initiative combating 20th-century tuberculosis outbreaks among the indigenous peoples of Alaska.

Based on seven years of ethnographic and archival research To Die in the Silence of History examines the complexity of events and the contradictions inherent in a radically changing social order in some of the rural indigenous communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of western Alaska. As such I analyze the twentieth century tuberculosis epidemics in rural Alaska through the conceptual framework of violence to connect the misery and suffering for many that suffused these epidemics in such a way that “attends to the injustices of history” (Evan and Carver 2017:3.), to make the case for what C. Wright Mills referred to as linking private misery to public concerns (1959). What makes To Die in the Silence of History unique is that it draws on comprehensive historical and ethnographic research to offer a complex analysis of contemporary Yup’ik life in the Far North through the lens of a particular disease entity.