“The “Forgotten” Expedition: Chronicity, Sovereignty and the Search for Inuit Cancer, 1903-1960”

Jennifer Fraser (University of Toronto)

Abstract to come.

“Psychological Fallout: Radiation, Indigeneity, and Cold War Memories in the Alaskan Arctic”

Tess Lanzarotta (Yale University)

Between 1955 and 1957, scientists from the U.S. Air Force’s Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory(AAL) traveled to Alaska’s North Slope region to administer radioactive isotopes of iodine-131 to over one hundred Iñupiaq individuals. The researchers’ aim was to track thyroid activity; they hypothesized that the thyroid gland was the site of a presumed “unique racial endowment,”which allowed Iñupiat peoples to thrive in the hostile climate of the Alaskan Arctic. However,the research team led study participants to believe that they were receiving medical care, and never told them that they had been exposed to radiation.

In this paper, I focus on the various responses to the iodine-131 study, after it was uncovered in1993. The researchers remained unrepentant, insisting that their project had been both harmless and essential for national security. The National Research Council immediately launched an investigation and released a report in 1996, which concluded that the study had been unethical, but had caused no physical injuries. Study participants, the report explained, had been wronged, but not harmed.” The North Slope Borough, the region’s municipal government, responded with their own investigation, which focused on widespread anxiety about the unknowability of both the past, where instances of care might actually have been exploitation, and the future, where the risks of radiation exposure might manifest. The report referred to this state of dread as “psychological fallout.” This paper, then, reflects on the ways that harm is defined, and on who has the power to produce these definitions.

“Northern Psychology: Isolation Research on the Mid-Canada Line”

Matthew Wiseman (University of Toronto)

Abstract coming.