Doctoral Dissertation Research: Identifying and Characterizing Human-Insect Relations through Material Culture in Western Alaska

昆虫出现在阿拉斯加的物质文化、口头传统和考古背景中，但学者们的关注有限。这个项目探讨了阿拉斯加西部原住民物质文化中昆虫的代表性和意义。该项目将从考古遗址和博物馆藏品中确定Yup'ik和Iñupiaq昆虫物品;将昆虫置于土著世界观的背景中;并将土著昆虫类别与科学的林奈分类法进行比较和对比。该项目促进了对世界上数量最多的分类单元的了解，无论是在物种还是个体数量方面，并突出了土著知识在了解北极生态系统方面的作用。该项目的资金支持对八个博物馆收藏的昆虫物品进行调查;正式的图像分析;以及将科学和土著分类鉴定应用于昆虫保护。民族志和民族历史的来源，结合采访数据，将语境的材料。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Insects appear in material culture, oral tradition and archaeological contexts across Alaska, yet have received limited attention from scholars. This project explores the representation and meaning of insects in Indigenous material culture of western Alaska. The project will identify Yup’ik and Iñupiaq insect objects from archaeological sites and museum collections; contextualize insects within Indigenous worldviews; and compare and contrast Indigenous insect categories with scientific Linnaean taxonomies. This project advances understanding of the world’s most numerous taxon, both in terms of species and numbers of individuals, and highlights the role of Indigenous knowledge in understanding arctic ecosystems. Funding for this project supports survey of insect objects in eight museum collections; formal iconographic analysis; and the application of both scientific and Indigenous taxonomic identifications to insect depictions. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources, combined with interview data, will contextualize the materials. Project findings will be disseminated via an insect-object catalog, conference presentations, peer-reviewed journal articles, and a dissertation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.