Lecturer
- About
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- Email Address
- r.p.wishart@abdn.ac.uk
- Telephone Number
- +44 (0)1224 273408
- Office Address
Department of Anthropology
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire
AB24 3QY
Office: Edward Wright G16
- School/Department
- School of Social Science
Biography
Research Areas
Sub-Arctic Canada, Gwich'in, Ojibwe, Scottish Fur Traders, Scottish Fishers, Development Alternatives, Mining, Energy Development, Oral History, Identity, Wildlife Management, Continuities in Hunting Traditions, Ethnohistory, Landscape, Human Animal Relationships, Colonialism, Arctic Domestication.
Academic History
BA Anthropology - Concordia University, Canada
MA Symbolic Anthropology - University of Western
Ontario, Canada
PhD Anthropology - University of Alberta, Canada - Research
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Research Overview
Research Areas
Sub-Arctic Canada, Gwich'in, Ojibwe, Scottish Fur Traders, Scottish Fishers, Development Alternatives, Mining, Energy Development, Oral History, Identity, Wildlife Management, Continuities in Hunting Traditions, Ethnohistory, Landscape, Human Animal Relationships, Colonialism, Arctic Domestication.
Arctic Domestication (2012-2018)
As a member of the ERC Arctic Domus Project (http://www.arcticdomus.org/) I am conducting ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and history of science research on human-animal relations in the Canadian North. I am particularly interested in how the Canadian government represented the animals in the north as wildlife and how this lead to policy implications for Indigenous rights, land management, missionary activity, and policing. An alternative view allowing for the sensibilities of northerners who insist that they cultivate multiple relations as evidenced by their stories, actions, and political negotiations is adding to our circumpolar reformulation of the idea of the Domus.
The Franz Boas Papers (2013-2018)
As a team member and editorial board member for The Franz Boas Papers: Editorial Editions (http://www.franzboaspapers.uwo.ca/) I am managing and conducting research on Boas' thoughts on the environment and domestication. The Franz Boas Papers: Documentary Edition is major new research initiative that aims to reassess and re-contextualize the papers of preeminent anthropologist Franz Boas. Boas’ ideas about race, language, culture and ethnography were pivotal in the development of American anthropology, however his Canadian fieldwork has largely been ignored by scholars. This documentary edition will highlight the importance of Boas’ fieldwork on Baffin Island and the Northwest Coast while also serving as comprehensive and essential resource for Boas researchers.
Indigenous Conservation and Development Alternatives (2014-2019)
As a team member for CICADA (Centre for Indigenous Conservation and Development Alternatives http://cicada.world/) I am continuing my research on mining, petroleum development, and wildlife management in the Western Canadian sub-Arctic looking for new ways to have impact on development policy. CICADA is a multidisciplinary research centre that targets the conceptual and practical potential of indigenous peoples’ collective ‘life projects’ to generate innovative regimes of environmental protection and alternative visions of development in the Americas, East Africa, and Australia.
Circumpolar Architecture (2006-2012).
As a team member of the Home, House, and Household project funded by ESF Eurocores Boreas programme (http://site.uit.no/boreas/) I conducted ethnographic and ethnohistorical research on vernacular architecture in the Western Canadian Arctic. I became particularly interested in the adoption and development of log cabins in the Mackenzie River Delta and how their construction is tied to Indigenous life ways and to on-going struggles with government and development interests.
Scottish Diaspora in "Gwich'in Country," Northwest Territories, Canada. (2003- 2010)
Building on my doctoral research, I was researching cultural exchanges between Gwich'in and Scottish fur traders during the height of the Fur Trade in Gwich'in Country (approximately 1800-1920). This period was characterized by an increased level of contact between the fur traders and the Gwich'in and resulted in many marriages between Scots and Gwich'in women. The children of these marriages (often referred to as Métis) went on to live a way of life thought to be desirable by the Gwich'in. They became examples of the core Gwich'in ethos of living on the land and brought new cultural forms of food, dance, music and language from their Scottish relatives. Scottish fur traders are often described in historical accounts as being a fairly homogeneous group shifting between being the other in a strange land or being the dominator. What is apparent in Gwich'in country is that Scots fur traders are not a homogeneous group, at least some of these Scots shared an affinity with Gwich'in practice and with their position vis-à-vis colonial expansion and were willing to perceive Gwich'in country not as a wilderness needing conquest but as a place of dwelling.
"Living on the Land" in Gwich'in Country (1998-2003)
I conducted my doctoral research at Fort McPherson (Tetlit-zheh), Northwest Territories, a Dene (Gwich'in) community. My dissertation explores how Tetlit Gwich'in human-animal and human-land relationships have been maintained throughout the history of First Nations-European contact and the way these relationships continue to be maintained in the face of programs now presented by the State as sustainable natural resource management. During my fieldwork, I participated in all of the hunting and gathering activities of a seasonal round while paying particular attention to personal narratives of place and wider issues to do with oral history. Many of the personal narratives and historical accounts are set against the history, policies and actions of representatives of the state, including current "co-management" boards, and serve to instruct on issues of cultural maintenance and proper ways of behaving in relation to Tetlit Gwich'in constructions of the environment.
- Teaching
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Teaching Responsibilities
Undergraduate Courses Currently and Recently being Taught
AT1003 Introduction to Anthropology: Peoples of the World
AT2510 Anthropology and Imperialism
AT2511 Colonialism Re-Imagined
AT3518 Society and Nature
AT4509 Anthropology of the North
SX1015 Oceans and Society
Postgraduate
I teach on the core courses for the MRes in Social Anthropology and on the Msc People and Environment Programme
Current Postgraduate Supervisees
Tara Joly Encountering wetlands: oil sands reclamation in western subarctic Canada
Catherine Munro Historic and contemporary relationships between people and ponies in Shetland Alexander Oehler Hunting and herding in the Saian Mountains of South Siberia
Zoe Todd Lands, lakes and livelihoods: women’s subsistence fishing in Paulatuk, NT
Paula Schiefer
Jordan Gavin
Tamara Ranspot
Gioia Barnbrook
Erin Consigllio
Completed PhD
Candice Roze: Re-thinking environmental knowledge through an anthropological approach to people’s understanding of the forest in Vanuatu
Cesar Giraldo Herrera: Sweet dreams rocking Viking boats: Biocultural animic perspectivism through Nordic seamanship.
Pelle Tejsner: 'It is windier nowadays': Coastal livelihoods and changing weather in Qeqertarsuaq
Darrin Russell: Becoming related: The performance of ‘savagery’ and sociality in 17th century New France
Kamal Adhirkari: Ethnobotany and Corruption in Nepal
- Publications
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Page 1 of 5 Results 1 to 10 of 42
Fishing for pearls, restoring a presence: Nawken perspectives on a banned practice.
Contributions to Conferences: Oral PresentationsNoggins Lellum:: The inter-relations between Nawken food harvesting and belonging
Contributions to Conferences: Oral PresentationsRevitalizing Crabgrass Collective:: Traditions and Trajectories
Contributions to Conferences: Oral PresentationsNawken Food Sovereignty: Restoring a recognised presence through collaborative research
Contributions to Conferences: Oral Presentations'They work for me, I work for them': Investigatory attunements and partnerships between dogs and Gwich'in in Northern Canada.
Sentient Entanglements and Ruptures in the Americas:: Human-Animal Relations in the Amazon, Andes, and Arctic. Bolton, M., Loovers, P. (eds.). Brill, pp. 118-134, 16 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)Subarctic: Accommodation and resistance since 1970
Handbook of North American Indians: Introduction. Krupnik, I. (ed.). 1 edition. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, pp. 320-337, 17 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersWhere is the real trap? Domination and mutualism in Teetl’it Gwich’in sensibilities about trapping
Journal of Material Culture, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 437-452Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183518820365
'Hard Times are Coming': Architectures of Cultural Revitalization
Contributions to Conferences: Oral PresentationsConclusion - Dogs in the North
Dogs in the North: Stories of Cooperation and Co-Domestication. Losey, R., Wishart, R., Loovers, J. P. L. (eds.). Oxbow Books, 15 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersTelling Stories of Co-Domestication and Cooperation, an Introduction
Dogs in the North: Stories of Cooperation and Co-Domestication. Losey, R., Wishart, R., Loovers, J. P. L. (eds.). Routledge, pp. 1-7, 7 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315437736-1
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus