This dissertation examines the political, environmental and ideological conflicts surrounding the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the efforts of Native activists and environmental NGOs to prevent oil development in this region. Based on nearly two years of ethnographic fieldwork with the Gwich'in Athabascan community of Vashraii K'oo, AK and with environmental NGOs operating in Fairbanks, AK and Washington DC, I consider the ways that NGOs and indigenous groups can be "on the same side," yet can simultaneously be working against each other. Both Gwich'in activists and environmental NGOs argue that oil development in the Arctic Refuge would be ecologically damaging and would likely have deleterious impacts on the region's wildlife. Of particular concern to the Gwich'in are the impacts that development would have on migrating caribou herds, which are an important cultural and subsistence resource. However, the Gwich'in also have to contend with unemployment, lack of economic resources and concerns over culture/language loss among younger generations; hence, oil development is not always the issue of foremost importance. The NGOs, on the other hand, often characterize the proposed oil development in the Arctic Refuge as the 'most critical environmental issue' of this era. In order to engage with a broader constituency, they portray the Arctic Refuge using nationalist rhetoric and attempt to resituate this landscape as part of a global environmental commons. While the NGOs do attempt to connect their opposition to oil development with concerns over the cultural and subsistence rights of adjacent Gwich'in communities, they do so in ways that leave little room for more nuanced or localized perspectives or for Native identities which do not fit neatly into prevailing Native-environmentalist tropes.

This work demonstrates the need to interrogate presumed alliances between environmental NGOs and Native American communities. By situating these alliances within the deeper historical trajectory of state Native policies and environmental policies, I am able to show how the Gwich'in may be benefited by these alliances in terms of addressing their concerns over oil development in the Arctic Refuge, but can simultaneously be hindered in their pursuit of other locally defined political goals.