A Multi-Site Ethnoastronomical Study of African Stellar Navigators and Their Communities

该奖项为博士后研究和培训的学生提供奖学金支持。 该学生提议的研究项目题为“非洲恒星导航员及其社区的多地点人种天文学研究”。 这位学生在圣克鲁斯的加州大学获得天文学和天体物理学博士学位，她将研究天文学知识的当前使用以及它所处的政治和社会经济环境，重点是恒星导航，恒星导航员及其在非洲的社区。 更具体地说，通过对突尼斯和东非厄立特里亚马萨瓦周围地区的初步实地调查，学生将研究非本地技术的全球化如何改变资源分配，仪式，特权和天文知识的定义。博士后学生将在突尼斯与恒星导航员，他们的现代导航同行，以及岛上其他居民的样本进行民族志采访。 这项研究的一个目标是对Kerkennah群岛的几名渔民进行关于恒星导航的采访，并记录与其中一名恒星导航员的乘船旅行。这段录像将成为热带天文馆表演的基础。 在厄立特里亚的实地工作将包括审查阿法尔恒星导航知识的起源、恒星导航在厄立特里亚独立中的应用程度以及阿法尔人民在争取独立的斗争中政治和社会经济地位的变化。一个假设是，导航设备和技术的引入改变了谁可以访问，控制和专业知识的天文知识的恒星导航1）减少恒星导航的需要，2）降低恒星导航员的经济地位，因此，3）限制恒星导航知识的传播。 另一种假设是，由于光污染等因素，电路灯技术的全球化导致了恒星名称和星座的天文知识减少。 该项目不仅将促进非正规科学教育，而且还将促进科学和技术研究，研究与科学和技术发展有关的智力、价值、过程和影响因素。 学生将采用考古天文学和民族天文学，其中联合收割机天文学，考古学和人类学的跨学科领域。

This award provides fellowship support to a student for post-doctoral research and training. The student's proposed research project is entitled `A Multi-Site Ethnoastronomical Study of African Stellar Navigators and Their Communities.` The student, who received her Ph.D in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, will study the current use of astronomical knowledge and the political and socioeconomic environments in which it is situated by focusing on stellar navigation, and the stellar navigators and their communities in Africa. More specifically, through a preliminary site investigation of Tunisia and the region around Massawa, Eritrea, East Africa, the student will examine how the globalization of non-local technologies has shifted the allocation of resources, the rites, privileges, and definitions of astronomical knowledge. The post-doctoral student will conduct ethnographic interviews in Tunisia with the stellar navigators, their modern navigation counterparts, and a sample of other inhabitants of the island. One goal of the research is to videotape interviews of several fishermen of the Kerkennah Islands about the use of stellar navigation and to record a boat trip with one of the stellar navigators. The video will be the basis of a planetarium show on the tropic. Field work in Eritrea will include an examination of the origins of the Afar stellar navigation knowledge, the extent to which stellar navigation was used in Eritrean independence, and the change in political and socioeconomic status of the Afar people over the course of the struggle for independence. One hypothesis is that the introduction of navigation equipment and techniques has changed who has access to, control of, and expertise in the astronomical knowledge of stellar navigation by 1) decreasing the need for stellar navigation, 2) decreasing the economic status of the stellar navigators, and therefore, 3) limiting the transmission of the knowledge of stellar navigation. Another hypothesis is that the globalization of electric street lamp technology has contributed to a decrease in astronomical knowledge of stellar names and constellations due to, among other factors, light pollution. This project will not only contribute to informal science education, but also to science and technology studies, which looks at the intellectual, value, process and impact factors related to the development of science and technology. The student will employ the interdisciplinary fields of archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy, which combine astronomy, archaeology, and anthropology.