Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Keywords
Alaska, COVID-19 pandemic, gendered impacts, Indigenous communities, resilience, women
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Societies
Volume
15
Issue
5
First Page
1
Last Page
36
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alaska communities faced an extremely challenging situation given their socioeconomic, cultural, and demographic characteristics, as well as issues related to remoteness and colonial legacy. This paper seeks to advance the understanding of the gendered impacts and implications of crises like the COVID-19 pandemic on Indigenous women in Alaskan urban and rural communities through a resilience lens. The paper addresses two primary research questions: (1) What are the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Indigenous women in urban and rural Alaska, and specifically what are the gendered implications in the personal, sociocultural, and economic domains? (2) What are the strengths associated with women’s responses to COVID-19 that contribute to individual and community resilience during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and what are the constraints? This research is based on seventeen in-depth thematic interviews conducted in the city of Anchorage, the hub community of Nome, and its neighboring rural communities on the Seward Peninsula. Using the deficit-based approach combined with a strength-based perspective, this study provides a comprehensive examination of Indigenous women experiences during the pandemic across key domains of gendered impacts and responses, also providing a first-ever analysis of differences between rural and urban settings. The results revealed that despite significant challenges in personal, sociocultural, and economic domains, women demonstrated resilience and resourcefulness, while serving as caregivers at home and across their communities. The Indigenous holistic concepts of health and well-being, along with values of care, mutual support, and strong social and kinship ties, combined with traditional land- and water-based activities and cultural practices, play a crucial role in times of crisis, significantly contributing to building resilience and fostering empowerment at both the individual and community levels.
Department
Department of Geography
Original Publication Date
4-28-2025
Object Description
1 PDF File
DOI of published version
10.3390/soc15050122
Repository
UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa
Copyright
©2025 The Author(s)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Rozanova-Smith, Marya; Apok, Charlene; and Petrov, Andrey N., "“I Think Even in Challenging Times We Can Still Be Uplifting”: Indigenous Women’s Experiences of Resilience to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Alaska" (2025). Faculty Publications. 6784.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/facpub/6784
Comments
First published in Societies, v15 i5 (2025) published by MDPI DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15050122