Identifying possibilities to work collaboratively towards food security: A community-centered actor-issue network analysis of the Arctic Indigenous food system on St. Paul Island, Alaska

Collaboration is crucial for addressing complex, interlinked issues in social-ecological systems. This is particularly true in Indigenous food systems, as Indigenous communities often rely heavily on local resources and social collaborations for food security. A lack of collaboration can risk negative consequences such as underrepresented needs, counteracting measures, and unintentionally duplicated efforts. Here, we constructed a two-layer actor-issue network of the interlinked food security issues in the Indigenous food system of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Alaska, based on interviews with 36 local actors. Our analysis of this network demonstrates how power and interest in inter-related food system issues are distributed among local food system actors and how actors collaborate around these issues. Specifically, we identify the interconnections among issues, and the relative frequency of recurring patterns, or ‘motifs,’ which describe desirable and non-desirable collaborative arrangements, within the food system. Our approach reveals the issues of high food prices, wildlife decline, and lack of subsistence providers as most interconnected with other issues in the food system. High food prices and wildlife decline were both more addressed – both collaboratively and individually – than the lack of subsistence providers. Other issues, such as inflation and climate change, have high interest among the community, but they perceive that their power to address these issues is low. By prioritizing action on issues with high interconnectedness, low collaboration, or a mismatch between interest and power, the community can best decide how to leverage local collaborative arrangements to address the overarching challenge of food security.