Health and social science research in the Arctic: guidelines and pitfalls.

The opportunity to comment on "Misalliances in the Barrow Alcohol Study" by Dr. Edward Foulks opens the door to the discussion of a wide range of issues in sociocultural research. These comments will focus on issues specific and relevant to the Barrow study. I will confine myself to discussion of the Arctic and the immediate relevance of Arctic Research to the larger scene. Arctic research has attracted increasing official attention in the decade since the Barrow Alcohol Study. A wide range of guidelines and standards have been developed which were not in place in 1979. The Barrow Alcohol Study, with its sequelae, will be viewed as a social phenomenon in and of itself. A brief analysis and discussion will focus on issues relevant to Arctic research. The Arctic and Subarctic regions comprise some 20% of the earth's land mass. These regions constitute one of last great frontiers and reservoirs of untapped resources and are undergoing intense exploration and development. The importance of the American Arctic to the scientific community should be clear. National defense, resource development, rapid population change, and the intense differential stresses which impinge upon Arctic populations, Native and non-Native alike, are all issues of broad research significance. All indicators suggest that technological and developmental change is having a shattering impact on the traditional cultures and adaptations of the Arctic. It is worth noting that the North American Arctic and Australia are the only areas of the world in which hunting and gathering societies have always lived in isolation from agricultural, pastoral, and industrial systems. In the north, peoples live as they have existed throughout most of human existence (Burch, 1988).