The Influence of Culture on Asset Building

1
The Influence of Culture on Asset Building

• Sarah Hicks
• Director, National Congress of American Indians
  Policy Research Center
• Prepared for the Ford Foundations Convening
• Asset Building The Perspectives of People of
  Color
• October 2, 2005

2
Overview

• Culture
• Kodiak, Alaska
• Alutiiq culture
• Facets of Native cultures impact on asset
  building
• Elements of successful Native asset building
  strategies

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Culture

• the customs, arts, social institutions, and
  achievements of a particular nation, people, or
  other social group
• the attitudes and behavioral characteristics of
  a particular social group
• (The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2001)

4
Culture

• the production and exchange of shared meanings
  including such things as language, ceremonial
  life, food, values, kinship structure, etc.
• (A. Cavender Wilson, 2004)

5
Kodiak, Alaska
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Alutiiq Culture

• Our elders
• Our heritage language
• Family and the kinship of our ancestors and
  living relatives
• Ties to our homeland
• A subsistence lifestyle, respectful of and
  sustained by the natural world
• Traditional arts, skills, and ingenuity

7
Alutiiq Culture

• Faith and a spiritual life, from ancestral
  beliefs to the diverse faiths of today
• Sharing we welcome everyone
• Sense of humor
• Learning by doing, observing and listening
• Stewardship of the animals, land, sky and waters

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Alutiiq Culture

• Trust
• Our people we are responsible for each other and
  ourselves
• Respect for self, others and our environment is
  inherent in all of these values
• (Compiled by the Native Educators of the Alutiiq
  Region, the Alutiiq Elders Council, and the
  Alutiiq Academy)

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Impact of Native Culture on Asset Building

• Generally four core issues
• Asset building as private sector strategy vs.
  underdeveloped reservation economies
• Sharing and reciprocity vs. savings and
  accumulation
• Communal accumulation and use of resources vs.
  individual accumulation and use
• Mainstream vs. tribal definition of assets
• (Hicks et al. 2005)

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Impact of Native Culture on Asset Building

• Definition of assets includes cultural,
  political, and institutional assets (First
  National Development Institute, 2000) does not
  require appreciation over time
• History with assets rich in assets,
  asset-stripping policies (Henson et al., 2005)
• Incentives to build and uses of assets improving
  community quality of life better opportunities
  for next generation

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Impact of Native Culture on Asset Building

• Key elements of successful models
• Exercise of tribal self-determination
• Deliberate and balanced building of assets
• Community leadership with vision
• Community support
• Resources
• (Hicks et al. 2005)