Dissertation Research: Hunting as Being and Knowing in Northwest Alaska

该项目支持研究生Josh Wisniewski在阿拉斯加西北部的Inupiaq生存狩猎社区的民族志实地研究。 在民族志人类学的传统中，Wisniewski将探讨因纽特人对环境的了解与积极沉浸在环境中之间的关系。 通过参与式观察和半结构化访谈，研究者将收集有关北极人类活动的生态/经济和意识形态/宇宙学方面的数据。 作为一名学徒猎人，Wisniewski将探索他的假设，即了解环境的当地方式超越了分类描述，动物行为和迁移路线。 了解和参与“有感觉的”自然世界的当地模式形成了一个关系本体论框架。 通过这个项目，研究者希望深入了解这个知识框架，并更深入地了解因纽特人的人格。 此外，由于气候引起的侵蚀破坏了海岸的稳定，该社区可能被迫搬迁，因此该项目将通过提供文字和视觉媒体材料，记录生态知识，狩猎和食物保存做法，以及对适应快速变化的环境的见解，为社区正在进行的文化和历史保护做出贡献。

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.