Empowering Tribal Youth in Cultural Heritage Management: A Case Study from the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

This paper explores a collaborative program focused on identifying the role of archaeology in heritage education and management delivered under cultural leadership. The method of delivery and teaching is reflexive and adaptive, via on-ground conservation projects that have tangible social outcomes focused on empowering Alaskan Native youth. A case study from the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska examines how action-oriented education, via conservation, is critical to the development of a more socially relevant archaeology. At the same time, the program ensures the archaeological process links with the transmission of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the incorporation of local cultural structures for practical landscape management.