Our Ways of Knowing

Abstract

This article is an ethnographic field report on the study of uses of underground food storage facilities (“meat caches”) relating to sociocultural and climatic changes in arctic and sub‐arctic communities in western Alaska. In the summers of 2022 and 2023, the authors (a Japanese female anthropologist and an American male anthropologist) conducted fieldwork in the partner communities, recognizing that our roles in participant observation were somewhat different because of our differing identities. This paper introduces how our ethnic backgrounds and genders have affected our experiences of participant observation and how ethnographers can learn about community and family food traditions from community perspectives based on diverse identities (gender, age, language) in relation to those of research partners.