Professor David Anderson

Chair in The Anthropology of the North

About

Email Address: david.anderson@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number: +44 (0)1224 272772
Office Address: G5 Edward Wright Building
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen
AB24 4QY
Scotland
School/Department: School of Social Science

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

University Duties

2010-2012 Steering Committee, Indigenous Masters Prog, Univ of Tromsø
2007-2009 Senator, University of Aberdeen
2007-2009 Vice President, Aberdeen branch of University and Colleges Union
2009 School of Social Sciences working party on academic workload modelling
2007-2008 AUCU representative, Working Party on Promotion Regulations
2007-2008 AUCU representative, Joint [Union and University] Negotiating Committee
2003-2007 Member, Executive Committee Aberdeen branch of University and Colleges Union
2007 Dep’t representative, School of Social Sciences Executive Committee
2005 Member, Special School of Social Sciences Committee on Undergraduate Assessment
2005 Member, College of Arts and Social Sciences Committee on Teaching and Learning

2005 Alternate Member, College of Arts and Social Sciences Committee on Research

Departmental Duties

2009 Exams Officer, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
2007-2008 Head of Department, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen (rotating duty)
2002-2005 Exams Officer, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
2001-2004 Post-Graduate Student Admissions Officer, Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
2000-2005 Undergraduate Student Honours Adviser of Studies, Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
2000-2003 Undergraduate Student Honours Adviser of Studies, Sociology, University of Aberdeen
2000-2004 Library Officer, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen

Selection Committees

2010 Chair, PhD Stipendiat Search Committee, University of Tromsø8
2007 Chair, PhD Stipendiat Search Committee, University of Tromsø
2006 Chair, PhD Fellowship Search Committee, University of Aberdeen
2005 Chair, Postdoctoral Fellowship Search Committee, University of Aberdeen
2005 Member, two Lecturer Search Committees, University of Aberdeen
2004 Chair, PhD Fellowship Search Committee, University of Aberdeen
2004 Member, Lecturer Search Committee, University of Aberdeen
2004 Member, Postdoctoral Fellowship Search Committee, University of Aberdeen
2002 Member, Lecturer Search Committee, University of Aberdeen
1999 Member, Assistant Professor Search Committee, University of Alberta

External Memberships

2007-2010 External Examiner, Tripos Part II, Department of Social Anthropology, Univ of Cambridge
2007-2009 External Committee Member, SSHRCC Standard Research Grant Committee, Canada
2004-2006 External Examiner, MPhil in Polar Studies, University of Cambridge

Research

Research Overview

political ecology, human-animal relations, development theory, political anthropology, landscape studies, ethnohistory, archaeology, the history of science and cross-cultural ideas of health.

Current Research

Research Areas: Central and Eastern Siberia (Taimyr, Evenkiia, Pribaikal’e, Zabaikal’e, Iakutiia) and the Russian North (Kola, Arkhangel’sk), Northern Norway, and Northwestern Canada (Gwich’in Settlement Region)

Funding and Grants

Current projects

2012-2017 European Research Council Advanced Researcher Grant: Arctic Domus
(total budget €2,497,830 over 5 years)

This major research grant aims to develop a new theory of human animal relationships in the circumpolar North based on field and laboratory research in the Canadian, Scandinavian, Alaskan, and Russian Arctic and made up of a team of ten researchers and six cooperating laboratories.
http://arcticdomus.org

2011-2013 Wenner Gren Foundation International Collaborative Research Grant
(total budget USD $29,500 over two years)

This project, held with the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology in St. Petersburg with Dr. Dmitrii Arziutov, aims to document the history of etnos theory with special reference to Siberian indigenous people through directed interviews and the digitisation of primary archival material.

http://www.wennergren.org/grantees/anderson-david-g

Past projects

2006-2010 European Science Foundation BOREAS network grant
(total budget of €1,814,000 over three years involving 5 national funding councils)

This international network grant is designed to study the vernacular architecture, historical demography and household archaeology of circumpolar hunters over three years. It involves fieldwork in 4 countries and involves researchers based in Norway, USA, Canada, Sweden and Finland. The project involves co-ordinating the activities of 10 co-investigators and 35 project members, and directly managing the work with one post-doctoral fellow, one PhD student, and two contracted workers.
http://site/uit.no/boreas

2006-2010 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
(total budget of £110,000 over five years)

Prof. Anderson was the 'Ethnoarchaeological Module Leader' for an international MCRI research initiative to investigate the habitation sites and settlement architecture of Evenki, Buriat and Yakut communities in the Lake Baikal Area of Siberia. The component involves ethnohistorical research, historical demographic research, and ethnoarchaeological fieldwork. The project involves co-ordinating the work of 6 contracted archival researchers based in Russia, 3 ethnoarchaeological researchers, and 2 technicians based in Aberdeen.
http://bap.arts.ualberta.ca/about/ethnographic.php?lang=en

2008-2009 Economic and Social Research Council (UK)
(total budget £38,000 over two years)

In collaboration with Dr. Nicholas Ellison, this project documented the performance of indigeneity in North America and Eurasia, with an international seminar on the topic in9-10 June 2009.
http://esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-000-22-2883/read

2005-2008 Norwegian Research Council, Norway
(total budget of £172,500 over three years)

This project is aimed at the recover, digitisation, and interpretation of archival documents from the 1926/27 Polar Census for Western Siberia and the Russian North. It involves one post-doctoral researcher and seven contracted scholars across Russia. This grant also covers 18 months research time release.
http://www.forskningsradet.no/servlet/Satellite?c=Prosjekt&cid=1193731601887&pagename=ForskningsradetNorsk/Hovedsidemal&p=1181730334233

2005-2007 The British Library Endangered Archives Programme, UK
(total budget of £ 42,000 over one and a half years)

This project is designed to research, digitise, and preserve several collections of glass plate negatives of aboriginal people in Siberia in three collections in Central Siberia. The grant covers the employment of two Russian researchers, two PhD students, and equipment.
http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/anderson.html

2003-2008 Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK
(total budget £147,000 over four years)

This project is aimed at a review of how archives in Russia and the former Soviet Union serve as an essential part of social memory. The project involves a post-doctoral research fellow and a four contracted Russian scholars.
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funded-Research/Pages/Aboriginal-Land-Rights-in-Siberia-Archival-and-Living-Transcript-at-Lake-Baikal.aspx

Publications

Update

Memberships and Affiliations

Departmental Duties

Selection Committees

Research Overview

Current Research

Funding and Grants

Current projects

Past projects

When Words Fail: Language Ecologies in the Circumpolar Arctic

Life Histories of the Etnos Concept in Eurasia: An introduction

Archaeological and Ethnographic Field Research in the Russian Arctic: The Experience of Arctic Domus

Ethnographic and phylogenetic markers of domestic reindeer breeds in Southeastern Siberia

Indigenous Land Entitlements, and Land-use Mapping, in the Canadian and Russian Arctic

Populi͡at͡sionno-geneticheskiĭ i ėtnograficheskiĭ analiz ėvenkiĭskoĭ praktiki razvedenii͡a oleneĭ v Zabaĭkal'e

Etnos theory in 1917 and Today

Humans and Animals in Northern Regions

Maintaining genetic integrity of coexisting wild and domestic populations: Genetic differentiation between wild and domestic Rangifer with long traditions of intentional interbreeding

Ethnographic and phylogenetic markers of Rangifer in Southeastern Siberia

Architectures of domestication: on emplacing human-animal relations in the North

Nomadic and indigenous spaces: productions and cognitions

Comment: "The rise of reindeer pastoralism in Northern Eurasia: human and animal motivations entangled"

Zapiski “ushedsheĭ v sebi͡a ulitki”: Zabaĭkal'skie ėkspedit͡sii S.M. Shirokogorova i formirovanie osnov “ėtnos-myshlenii͡a”

Shifting Sands and Climate Change: Modalities of Dwelling at Yarte, Yamal, Siberia

Geoarchaeological tools to contextualise ancient pastoral sites in Suollagavalda, northern Sweden

Yarte VI, Yamal Peninsula, Northwest Siberia, in its Landscape Context

Methodological use of Magnetic Susceptibility to locate ancient reindeer herder hearths in Suollagavalda, northern Sweden: A geoarchaeological approach

An Ethnoarchaeological Survey of Hunter-Herder Hearths across Eurasia

Understanding past activities of pastoral nomadic Nenets from Western Siberia using a geoarchaeological toolkit

Comment on "Animal Autonomy and Intermittent Coexistences: North Asian Modes of Herding"

Prostranstvennye arkhitektury v otnoshenii͡akh mezhdu li͡ud'mi, zhivotnym mirom i landshaftom na severe

Colonizing the High Arctic: Mitochondrial DNA reveals common origin of Eurasian archipelagic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus)

Hunter-gatherer situations: Response by David G. Anderson to Thomas Widlok’s keynote speech (CHAGS XI)

Notes from his «snail’s shell»: The Zabaikal’ fieldwork of S.M. Shirokogoroff and the ground-work for etnos-thinking

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