I’m Chase Puentes!

I'm Chase Puentes (she/her), a PhD student in geography at the University of Washington. I was born and raised on the ancestral homelands of the Kumeyaay people in what's known as San Diego, California, where I developed a great love of coastal waters and a curiosity about people's connections to them. 

In 2020 I began building relationships with Inupiaq community members in Kivalina, Alaska as part of my Master's project to coproduce knowledge about local climate change impacts and increase Kivalina Volunteer Search & Rescue (KVL-SAR) capacity in response to them. Located on a barrier island along the northwest coast of Alaska and framed by the Chukchi Sea to the west and the Kivalina lagoon to the east, Kivalina is uniquely poised at the intersection of Arctic land and waters. Over the past four years, our collaborative work has changed shape according to community-stated needs to include efforts like fundraising and implementing emergency medical and Arctic rescue training, developing a hyperlocal sea ice forecasting program, and creating a story map showcasing stories and challenges of KVL-SAR.

My loved ones worry it's too cold for someone who grew up in southern California!

My current dissertation work centers around the intersections between climate change, gender, and Inupiaq food systems and sovereignty, which will culminate in the co-creation of a Kivalina women-led cookbook showcasing women's labor, relations, food traditions, environmental knowledge, and adaptations. This work would be impossible without putting friendships and care before research; our relationships and process of collaborating is often more important than the methods of the work itself. For me, successful polar research is that which supports community priorities and grows solidarity amongst project partners.

I am constantly inspired by the ceaseless hard work, responsiveness, and innovation that Inupiaq people demonstrate. As anyone in the village will tell you, "adaptation is our tradition" and works in tandem with cultural values that prioritize sharing, respect, and responsibility to one's relations. While I am privileged to study at a top-tier research university, I am always learning from my friends in Kivalina and looking for creative, interdisciplinary ways to uplift their efforts to keep their community safe and healthy in a rapidly changing Arctic.

I assure them that I'm so well looked after in Kivalina by friends, I never go cold or hungry.

I am of mixed Mexican, Mestiza, and European ancestry and was raised in a predominantly white suburb in north San Diego county. I had always felt a sense of unbelonging that I could only put words to later in life: I was unsettled because legacies and ongoing processes of colonialism had pushed my family to function outside of community. In other words, I was raised disconnected from culture or heritage. When I started grad school and began engaging with Indigenous studies scholarship, it was like a bolt of intellectual lightning that finally illuminated the language and concepts I had been missing to understand not only my own story, but also the contexts surrounding current struggles for self-determination by Indigenous communities around the world.

Despite being from a different part of the world, I care deeply about the wellbeing of Kivalina and other Northern and Indigenous communities who are faced with incredible challenges to their daily lives and survivance.

I know from experience how precious community is to identity, and am so privileged to work alongside people in Kivalina now. Despite being from a different part of the world, I care deeply about the wellbeing of Kivalina and other Northern and Indigenous communities who are faced with incredible challenges to their daily lives and survivance.

In addition to polar research, I also adore film and multimodal arts and make a point to leverage visual and digital storytelling in my work. I believe these methods can tell us things that written words alone cannot, and serve an important role in Indigenous self-representation.

When I'm not working in Seattle or Kivalina you may catch glimpses of me hiking through the woods of the Pacific Northwest, strumming my banjo on the porch, reading fantasy in a sunny patch of grass, whispering secrets to my gigantic Maine Coon, or taking in the unfamiliar scents of mountains, beaches, or fields in another country.

For me, successful polar research is that which supports community priorities and grows solidarity amongst project partners.

My loved ones worry it's too cold for someone who grew up in southern California! I assure them that I'm so well looked after in Kivalina by friends, I never go cold or hungry. After they believe that they're incredibly supportive of my involvement in the North.

Last summer I co-directed an undergraduate study abroad course in Greenland, spurring me to read and have conversations about Greenlandic Inuit experiences with colonization, climate change, and traditional food systems. I would really love to return to Greenland in the next year or two to engage in a similar food and labor project with Greenlandic Inuit women, creating bridges between them and their Inupiat relatives in North America.

My career is mostly focused on my work in the North, but I also care about Indigenous food sovereignty more broadly. I currently serve on the Living Breath Committee, an Indigenous women-run Native foods symposium hosted annually at the University of Washington's Intellectual House.

Follow Chase on Instagram at @chasekaws and read more about her work at chasepuentes.weebly.com!