Dissertation Research: Hunting as Being and Knowing in Northwest Alaska

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

This project supports ethnographic field research of a graduate student, Josh Wisniewski, in an Inupiaq subsistence hunting community in Northwest, Alaska. In the tradition of ethnographic anthropology, Wisniewski will explore the relationship between Inupiaq knowledge of the environment and active immersion in the environment. Through participant observation and semi structured interviews, the researcher will collect data on the ecological/economic and the ideological/cosmologic dimensions of human action in the arctic. Working as an apprentice hunter, Wisniewski will explore his hypothesis that local ways of knowing the environment extend beyond taxonomic descriptions, animal behavior, and migration routes. Local modes of knowing and engaging in a "sentient" natural world form a relational ontological framework. Through this project, the researcher hopes to gain insight into this knowledge framework and a deeper understanding of Inupiaq personhood. In addition, because this community may be forced to relocate due to climate induced erosion destabilizing their shore, the project will contribute to the community's on-going cultural and historic preservation by providing textual and visual media materials documenting ecological knowledge, hunting and food preservation practices, as well as insights into adaptation to their rapidly changing environment.